AR5 Chapter 11; Hiding the Decline (Part II)

In my first two articles on the leaked AR5 Chapter 11 (near-term projections) I looked at the caveats with which the IPCC is now surrounding their projections, and the lengths to which they are going to preserve the alarmist narrative. The caveats go to such ridiculous lengths that there is actually a quote suggesting that reality may well be within, above, or below the range projected by the models. Falsify that! To maintain the alarmist narrative , they characterize record ice extent in the Antarctic as a “slight increase” and make no mention in the executive summary of the projection buried deep in the report that tropical cyclones may decrease in frequency by as much as one third by 2100.

But what of their temperature projections? Do they say how much they expect it to warm up in the next few decades? They do. But these are the high stakes projections for the IPCC because, unlike most of their projections, these ones will be falsified (or not) within the life times of most of this readership. True to form, they’ve surrounded their temperature projections with caveats while taking an interesting approach to maintaining the alarmist narrative.

The projection is for between 0.4 and 1.0 degrees of warming for the period 2016-2035 compared to the period 1986-2005. Now normally when the IPCC gives a range, we expect that their “best guess” is in the centre of the range. But oddly we find this phrase in Chapter 11:

[…] it is more likely than not that actual warming will be closer to the lower bound of 0.4°C than the upper bound of 1.0°C

In fact, they go out of their way elsewhere to suggest that the most likely outcome will be about 0.2 degrees per decade. With 2035 only a smidge over two decades away, how do they justify an upper bound 2.5 times their most likely scenario? While delving into this, I came across some rather interesting information. Here’s the graphs they provide with their projections for the beginning of the reference period (1986-2005) through to the year 2050:

Figure 11.33: Synthesis of near-term projections of global mean surface air temperature. a) 4 Projections of global mean, annual mean surface air temperature (SAT) 1986–2050 (anomalies relative to 1986–2005) under all RCPs from CMIP5 models (grey and coloured lines, one ensemble member per model), with four observational estimates (HadCRUT3: Brohan et al., 2006; ERA-Interim: Simmons et al., 2010; GISTEMP: Hansen et al., 2010; NOAA: Smith et al., 2008) for the period 1986–2011 (black lines); b) as a) but showing the 5–95% range for RCP4.5 (light grey shades, with the multi-model median in white) and all RCPs (dark grey shades) of decadal mean CMIP5 projections using one ensemble member per model, and decadal mean observational estimates (black lines). The maximum and minimum values from CMIP5 are shown by the grey lines. An assessed likely range for the mean of the period 2016–2035 is indicated by the black solid bar. The ‘2°C above pre-industrial’ level is indicated with a thin black line, assuming a warming of global mean SAT prior to 1986–2005 of 0.6°C. c) A synthesis of ranges for the mean SAT for 2016–2035 using SRES CMIP3, RCPs CMIP5, observationally constrained projections (Stott et al., 2012; Rowlands et al., 2012; updated to remove simulations with large future volcanic eruptions), and an overall assessment. The box 1 and whiskers represent the likely (66%) and very likely (90%) ranges. The dots for the CMIP3 and CMIP5 estimates show the maximum and minimum values in the ensemble. The median (or maximum likelihood estimate for Rowlands et al., 2012) are indicated by a greyband.

Is the first graph serious? 154 data plots all scrambled together are supposed to have some meaning? So I started to focus on the second graph which is presented in a fashion that makes it useful. But in examining it, I noticed that something is missing. I’ll give everyone 5 minutes to go back and see if they can spot it for themselves.

Tick

Tick

Tick

Did you spot it?

They hid the decline! In the first graph, observational data ends about 2011 or 12. In the second graph though, it ends about 2007 or 8. There are four or five years of observational data missing from the second graph. Fortunately the two graphs are scaled identically which makes it very easy to use a highly sophisticated tool called “cut and paste” to move the observational data from the first graph to the second graph and see what it should have looked like:

Well oops. Once on brings the observational data up to date, it turns out that we are currently below the entire range of models in the 5% to 95% confidence range across all emission scenarios. The light gray shading is for RCP 4.5, the most likely emission scenario. But we’re also below the dark gray which is all emission scenarios for all models, including the ones where we strangle the global economy.

It gets worse.

I did a little back of the envelope math (OK, OK, a spreadsheet, who has envelopes anymore these days?) and calculated that, assuming a linear warming starting today, we’d need to get to 1.58 degrees above the reference period to get an average of +1.0 over the course of the reference period itself. If my calcs are correct, extrapolating a straight line from end of current observations through 1.6 degrees in 2035 ought to just catch the top of that black bar showing the “Likely Range” in the centre of the graph:

Hah! Nailed it!

But now it is even worse for the IPCC. To meet the upper bound of their estimated range, the IPCC would need warming that (according to their own data) is below projections for all their models in all emission scenarios to suddenly increase to a rate higher than all their projections from all their models across all emission scenarios. In brief, the upper range of their estimate cannot be supported by their own data from their own models.

In fact, just based on their own graph, we’ve seen less than 0.4 degrees over the last 26 years or so, less than 2 degrees per century. That brown line I’ve drawn in represents a warming trend beginning right now and continuing through 2035 of 6 degrees per century, triple recent rates. Since the range in their own graph already includes scenarios such as drastic reductions in aerosols as well as major increases in CO2, there simply is no justification in their own data and their own models to justify an upper bound of 1.0 degrees.

That’s not to say it is impossible, I suppose it is possible. It is also possible that I will be struck by lightning twice tomorrow and survive, only to die in airplane crash made all the more unlikely by the fact that I’m not flying anywhere tomorrow, so that plane will have to come and find me. Of course with my luck, the winning Powerball ticket will be found in my wallet just to cap things off.

Is it possible? Sure. Is it likely?

Not according to their own data and their own models. The current version of IPCC AR5 Chapter 11 takes deception (intended or otherwise) to new heights. First, by hiding the fact that observational data lies outside the 95% confidence range of their own models, and second by estimating an upper range of warming that their own models say is next to impossible.

209 thoughts on “AR5 Chapter 11; Hiding the Decline (Part II)”

Well, if you inspect the 2nd Figure you should notice that it shows ‘decadal means’ and as such is not supposed to show anything for the last five years, which is the reason the observed curve does not go up to the present year. This is as it should be. The first Figure shows clearly that all their projections are on the high side of observations, so they are doing too good.

In a normal world with honest peer review, that whole section would be ‘rejected’!

Now that these models have been dis-proven using their own pages with the un-snipped graph, they’ll have time to ‘correct’ the propaganda before the official release.

Oh, wait, that never stopped the Paleo Climate graph that showed that Temp rises in the historical record always preceded C02 rises from being used in the Inconvenient Truth either.

If we are at the cusp of another cooling phase as many solar watchers believe, by the time the final report is ready, the sniping action to ‘hide the decline’ should make any news journalist ready to jump at the story of the century.

The second graph is labelled “decadal means”, presumably computed as a centered 10-year average. The most recent 10-years average would be centered at 2008; at the time of preparation of the graph it would have been around 2007.5.
You can tell it’s not the same “observations” curve in the second graph because it’s much smoother than the annual mean plotted in the first graph.

David what a great catch. These guys never cease to amaze me they are so corrupt it is scary. Perhaps your catch is just one more reason The Age published an actual sceptic article today. See it at Jo Nova.

I guess this shows how tricky these models can be. They still seem to ge taking models where time starts at abut 1998, the point where models match observations. In order to reach the high calue, the models which are outliers today need to remain as valid as the others – in effect implying that the uncertainty in the observations can justify the divergence. This is the problem with people not understanding what different model runs correspond to and how they can usefully be combined.
I guess that the stats to reconcile the models and observations is pretty complex stuff, and it is not trivial to come up with a good ‘best estimate’ (even accepting that it is likely to be inaccurate). Maybe one method would be to do a PC analysis and see it pick the lowest trending model runs as favourable, but that doesn’t really take us any further forward in rationalising the ‘likely range’.

This worst-case analysis is fundamentally nonsense in my view. Planning for worst case just isn’t done in practice, and even when you try, missing one trivial connection invalidates the whole approach (see recent financial collapse of banks for details). We’re planning for 1:1,000,000 scenario when the models are wrong 1:10,000. (or even more often if you accept the lukewarm cannon)

I think the RCP 6.0 scenario is actually the most realistic. The 6.0 stands for the forcing in W/m2 that will eventually be reached (in 2130), which is higher than the standard 3.7 W/m2 we hear about for a doubled CO2 forcing but this occurs by 2060 and then continues rising as CO2 is expected to continue rising until at least 2100. Then there is also the CH4, N20 and other forcings to add in.

RCP 4.5 assumes that the forcing will max out at 4.5 W/m2 in 2070 and then stay there which is probably not realistic. RCP 6.0 and 4.5 are basically the same out to 2060 and then 6.0 is the one that gets to +3.25C of warming by 2100, the standard IPCC forecast, so try to use the 6.0 scenario.

Just a note about Forcing, Concentration and Emission data availability in the scenarios.

One can get the forcing, concentration and emissions data for all scenarios here. Nice easy to use Excel spreadsheets by year from 1765 to 2500. (If you want to use them some time in the future, you should probably save them now because this data has been moved around and put under strict download restrictions by the IPCC previously – I’m not sure how long this page will be up).

And the Climate Explorer has put up a nice page of the multi-model means of the 4 scenarios here (just a note that the data should start in 1861 while it says 1860 on the downloads, just move it forward one year).

I’d suggest it’s even worse than Dave indicated. The temperature data is likely over-stated by poorly thought out adjustments and UHI. The “real” numbers are probably lower than shown when corrected for UHI and poor siting making the task of reaching the claimed warming even more difficult.

I don’t understand the wisdom of including model runs in the “spaghetti” that are significantly at variance with observations. Doesn’t that prove that they are incorrect? Of course that would reduce the plate of spaghetti to only a few left-over strands.

HaroldW says:
December 30, 2012 at 5:27 amYou can tell it’s not the same “observations” curve in the second graph because it’s much smoother than the annual mean plotted in the first graph.
Obviously a 10-yr smoothed curve will be a lot smoother that the unsmoothed one.

The concept of “decadal means” is simply another technique to hide the decline. It allows the early 21st century warmth to contaminate the cooler years that follow. This can be useful for noisy data but tends to hide cyclic data until well past the cycle changes. In this case the warmth from the warm PDO is still factored into the latest years even after it changed modes.

The CAGW story is now a teetering house of cards. It WILL collapse. That is no longer in question. The only question is when. It would have collapsed already were it not being propped up by the complete unwillingness of the media to report honestly on what is going on.

The fact that CAGW is a bankrupt theory is now an open secret. At some point this story is going to go mainstream. It just needs is for someone in the media to break ranks. A single well made and honest documentary would do it. Could be a Pulitzer prize in it for someone. Come on guys. Somebody is going to break this story. It could be you! Who will take the risk. Who will claim the prize. This is a massive story that needs to be told. Are you journalists or what?

When this does break it could get very ugly indeed. The fortunes of green parties all over the world are likely to take a hit. Science too will take a hit. Serves us right I guess for being too chicken to reign these cowboys in. And the scientists most directly fronting this need to watch out. When the public finally understands what has been going on they are going to be pretty pissed. You just have to look at those poor geologists locked up in Italy for making foolish authoritative statements about earthquakes to see the kind of thing that can happen in that situation.

Oh dear more Denial rubbish daring to question those above your pay grade who you are not worthy enough to lick the boots of. Have you not seen the pie chart on SkS? Is that not proof enough to refute this big oil funded climate crimines (death to deniers etc.)? Seriously how can you ignore a pizza pie?

Again the Kraken and his effect on climate has not been factored in and as we all know the Kraken makes the effect of CO2 but a drop in the ocean. The Kraken will make temps rise 10c in a week let alone this namby pamby IPCC decadal nonsense who are not alarming people enough as evidenced by the lack of people in the streets screaming that the sky is falling and that there is a mouse on the moon eating all the cheese.

It is clear to anyone looking at the IPCC graphs that all of the predicted curves are going to be well above the observed data. As the global cooling continues for the next several decades , the divergence between the two will be so great that it will be embarrassing to even show it. My guess is that the observed point will be around 0.2C and their predicted mid line [white line] will be 0.7C by 2030. Their predicted upper range will be 1.5c by 2030 The longer they try to hide their flawed science and simply wrong predictions , the worse it will look for them. You will note that they no longer show the curves at 2100 because by then the divergence could look even worse.How this kind of bad science is portrayed as climate science must be an embarrassment to all scientists. Where are all the scientific bodies now who rubber stamped this flawed science before. There is nothing wrong with making mistakes. Every scientist makes them some time in their career, they admit their error , learns from the mistake and goes on to make better science . The error is made worse when you try to hide your mistakes and still claim this as “solid “science This was the center piece of their flawed agw science

The current version of IPCC AR5 Chapter 11 takes deception (intended or otherwise) to new heights. First, by hiding the fact that observational data lies outside the 95% confidence range of their own models, and second by estimating an upper range of warming that their own models say is next to impossible.

You just have to be dumbstruck. The public cannot but feel that they are being had, or at least that the IPCC is trying hard. But this underlies what the PR strategy has to be, given the facts. Change the subject. If you have to talk about global warming, talk statistics and estimates. Global weirding is always good.

@Isvalgaard, the IPCC models are expect annual mean temperatures NOT decadal means. It is clear they choose to plot a decadal mean curve against the models to make it look better when the means graphs should not be compared against the models.

The people who still contribute to the IPCC, has anyone measured their average IQ as time goes by? Because I would expect a serious decline. Any intelligent person would these days avoid that career, they must be scraping the bottom of the barrel, brain-wise. Even intelligent crooks would much rather go into the CO2AGW-induced crony capitalism schemes.

So what kind of academic lowlife is still pursuing that GCM career? Neither honest nor efficient I fear. Schneider took the secret to that with him into his grave.

Hoffer’s synthesis shows that the warming is projected at an absurd rate, exposing the fallacy of IPCC methods of science. This trick of initiating a warming projection from a point six years previous to the release of the report (due in 2014) allows them to project an absurd rate of warming, with outdated graphics that hides the absurdity. This is a new twist on an old trick: now we have “hide the *incline*”. Very nifty- should get them another Nobel Prize. David Hoffer has exposed more “legerdemain” by the IPCC authors.

lsvalgaard says:
December 30, 2012 at 5:24 am
“Well, if you inspect the 2nd Figure you should notice that it shows ‘decadal means’ and as such is not supposed to show anything for the last five years, which is the reason the observed curve does not go up to the present year. This is as it should be. ”

BEST also used a decadal mean in their non-peer reviewed pre release to the media, which conveniently obscures the temperature plateau of the last 16 years.

I would like to see more on why the IPCC themselves now state that reality is likely to be at the lower end of the projections “ it is more likely than not that actual warming will be closer to the lower bound ” and what Working Group 2 think that will mean in terms of “catastrophy”.

It would of course be much easier to get the public’s attention on this issue if the majority of them got any useful instruction in school regarding science and math, and even simple graphing. Many of these stunts are classic “how to lie with statistics” tricks. Things that shoddy sale agents do all the time to mislead buyers of new cars and other products, but our educational system no longer teaches simple graphing and analysis. The kids just punch numbers into a graphical calculator and accept blindly what shows up on the screen. No critical thinking involved, never asking “does this make sense?”

We need a course in public schools something along the lines of “Limitations of data, and data presentation”. This is where you could draw together topics like significant digits, precision, uncertainty etc. Teach the kids to read the fine print on contracts, and note the deceptive practices used in advertising to hide what is really going on.

I notice that in the second diagram the IPCC provide a line which they purport to be the temperature at 2 degrees C above pre-industrial levels. I wonder which pre-industrial period this is. Obviously not the medieval warm period.

Perhaps David missed the ‘decadal means’ annotation? But, in truth, his analysis is essentially still valid. They almost certainly chose to use a decadal mean chart to ‘smooth’ out the curve, but also provide a perfect excuse to ‘ignore’ the last 10 years of (flatlining) temperature data?
Istill get pissed off that they produce these charts without including the previous historical temperature data – if this graph was extended back to 1900 or so, the uppy/downy natural climate variability would be clearly evident and would instantly suggest the climate sensitivity to CO2 is not nearly as high as they think.

It would be interesting to know why the IPCC thinks the temperature increases will be on the low side of their projections. What is happening in their minds to lead to such a statement?
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Your observation is worth emphasing. I consider it to be material.

Perhaps it is, on the part of the ‘scientists’, a realisation (which presently will not be admitted) that sensitivity to CO2 (at current concentrations) is significantly less than the ‘accepted’ figure/range and that natural variability plays a larger role in all of this than was ‘accepted’ to be the case when the early reports were written.

If one accepts the satellite data (then subject to fudging/corrections for aerosols) there is 33 years worth of data that shows no discernible CO2 induced temperature fluctuation. One would have to conclude that no CO2 signal can be read (with present instrument sensitivity) and/or that natural vaiation swamps any CO2 signal which may otherwise be contained within the data.

Whilst there are some issues with the satellite data, an impartial observer would prefer this source of data to the land based data sets which have obvious problems (such as siting issues, UHI and the like). Whilst climate ‘scientists’ may not openly acknowledge that the satellite data is the best evidence of recent temperature data, one can only presume that in their gut they know this to be the case and the satellite data is very damning.

It is doubtful that one will need to wait until 2035 to see the jig is up. The next decade is likely to be a game changer especially given the economic downturn in the West and the fact that emissions in developing countries will rise unabated, It will become more and more difficult to blame the West (and in any event the West will have no money to pay for mitigation/adaption/cliamte change projects oon developing nations).

A lot of questions will be asked within the next decade and I do not expect the blame game to be a pretty sight given that basis school boy errors have been made at all stages, not simply in the science, but also in historical perspective (including whether a warming of a few degrees would be a very good thing rather than a bad thing) and in the political response (such as the rush for wind and solar, and hindering shale and nuclear etc).

Hindsight is illuminating and with the clarity of vision that this provides, the ‘scientists’ who promoted it and/or gave it a free ride, and the politicians who jumped on the bandwagon will have nowhere to hide. Of course, it is impossible to turn back the clock and unpicl the harm that all of this has caused.

I see others have already spotted the change from annual to decadal means. However, this merely is how they accomplished their “clever trick to hide the decline” There is absolutely no reason to use ten year averaging on the measured data. That data is not swinging widely so their is no reason to smooth it beyond the annual averaging. It is perfectly valid to show the annual mean of the real data compared to decadal mean of the models when the purpose is to show trends across the models as an extrapolated prediction. There is no reason other than to deceive for their “statistical trick.”

It would be interesting to know why the IPCC thinks the temperature increases will be on the low side of their projections. What is happening in their minds to lead to such a statement?
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Excellent point Steve, I was going to ask a similar question.

Even though there is no evidence that Man Made contribution to GHGs has decreased (in fact the opposite is true), why have the IPCC predictions have moved dramatically southward ?

There have been no serious volcanic eruptions to make temperatures stagnate or fall, ENSO is about mid range but temperatures seem to be dropping slightly .. Can anyone on either side (or both preferably) offer an explanation as to why this is ?

DirkH says:
December 30, 2012 at 7:35
It’s all the rage in warmist circles. Expect 20 year means next.
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Yes, it is strange to chose a frequency that is beyond that of the reports. I could understand this a bit more if it were trying to show some historic analyses of noisy stochastic data, but for ‘global’ temperature a running 13 month average would be sufficient – unless of course the global temperature is so noisy and stochastic, but no it can’t be otherwise the error margin would be too great and temperatures to 2 decimal places would be invalidated by the error margin.

Besides that point it is now a mute argument anyway it’s just more straw stuffed into the same old shirt. Whatever way the alarmists want to try to iron this crease out, the analysis seems to be correct.

the GCM models used by the IPCC are not able to reproduce the natural climate oscillations (periods at about 9.1, 10-11, 20, 60 yr etc) which have a likely astronomical origin. As a consequence they completely mistake the climate attribution problem by overestimating the anthropocentric effect.

The steady temperature since 2000 is due to the cooling phase of the 60 and 20 year cycles that compensate some GHG warming.

Now it is one year that my paper was published and my forecast correctly predicted the temperature pattern. See here

Leif (and others) are correct, I missed the change to decadal means in the second graph. I knew the second graph had been smoothed in some way different from the first one, but I never really felt the need to figure out what it was because, at day’s end, it makes no difference.

If they truncated the data by leaving it out, the result is deceptive. If they hid it by using decadal means, then it is deceptive, it simply is a different means to accomplish the deception.

I challenge them or anyone else to provide an explanation of why the top graph is presented the way it is and the bottom graph differently.

1. The top and bottom graphs are identical in size and scaling. What purpose can be ascribed to smoothing the data in the second one differently from the first one?
2. How does one justify decadal means on a graph with only 30 years of data?
3. On a graph with only 30 years of data, how does one justify not using the actual data itself (annual or even monthly). They can plot 154 model outputs on top of each other but four temperature series with 30 data points each they smear together into decadal means?

All of which changes nothing in my final analysis. They need rates of warming to TRIPLE starting RIGHT NOW to get tot he top end of their range. That’s 6 degrees per century for the next 2 decades plus. To be fair, they blame aerosol reductions for some of this, and natural variation for some. They pretty much have to. We’re only at 40% of one doubling of CO2 now, we might hit 50% or 55% by 2035. For the bulk of that 6 degrees per century to be blamed on CO2, we’d need an astronomical sensitivity to CO2 orders of magnitude higher than any of their estimates.

Bottom line? The temperature NOW is outside the 95% confidence range for all models and all scenarios.

From the dates on the papers above, none of the referenced papers are capable of having observations for the end of the period in 2011. Additionally, ERA-Interim is a reanalysis of observations. Appears to me to be an analysis which fills in the blanks and fudges observations where necessary.

I actually find it encouraging that instead of showing predictions starting from ~2010 actual temperatures, they show predictions starting from actuals from the late 80’s, and display how the models diverge from actuals over time.
It would be so easy to ignore historical data if they really wanted to ‘deceive’ and just show predictions starting from ~2010 (claiming better models, lack of needed historical inputs for backfitting, etc), but they are not doing so.

TImothy Sorenson says:
December 30, 2012 at 7:07 am@Isvalgaard, the IPCC models are expect annual mean temperatures NOT decadal means. It is clear they choose to plot a decadal mean curve against the models to make it look better when the means graphs should not be compared against the models.

Timothy: Exactly.

We know the reason for the smoothing….decadal. But once again, comparing apples to limes.
One has to wonder………..did EVERY climate scientist flunk basic stats?

Or do they think that every person not in the climate field flunked?

I just shake my head at how widespread Skeptical Science Syndrome is in the climate science field. At least in the population who consider themselves “experts”.

Dr. Svalgaard:
In cases like this, Steve McIntyre’s wise advice is “watch the pea under the thimble.” The self-declared Hockey Team has long forfeited any presumption of innocence on the part of the perps, and I’m disappointed that a scientist of your standing would aid and abet.

Bob Koss says:
December 30, 2012 at 9:30 am
That top graphic didn’t even use actual observations. They used “observational estimates”.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

You are correct! I did notice that, just decided not to make a big deal out of it. The biggest issue for me is that for the upper bound of their estimate to have any validity, they need warming at a rate of 3x or more than what their own models show is likely.

But since you brought it up, what ELSE is missing?

Satellite observations.

I’m guessing those also alter the picture in ways that they don’t want to admit. graphing the relevant time periods in Wood for Trees is a snap. Scaling it so it fits to their graphs might be a bit tricky, but it would be interesting to see if someone has an easy way of doing it.

normalnew says:
December 30, 2012 at 10:10 amAnother thing. In the middle graph (the one below the “hide the decline” graph). Why is observed data not flat for the last 16 years, but going up? Thats not whats been observed is it?

Normalnew:
IPCC is using the adjusted, and totally debunked, Foster and Rahmstorf (2011) results.

If you can’t record warming from observation, then change the metrics and “surprise”…..you can get warming.

Another classic case of Skeptical Science Syndrome, where observation is no longer reality.

richard verney says:
December 30, 2012 at 8:12 am
A lot of questions will be asked within the next decade and I do not expect the blame game to be a pretty sight
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Science will be thrown under the bus by the politicians of the day to cover up their own role in wasting billions of $$ in taxpayer money and in effect paying businesses to relocate from the west to india and china, to reduce local emissions while increasing global emissions.

Even more funnier is to compare 1900-1980 period against the models. They just slowly rise, faster and faster while the temperature record goes 30 years up and 30 years down. The 1910-1940 warming has never been explained. Cute, isn’t it?

Your curves are much closer to reality than IPCC curves. You are getting closer and closer to the observed data. Personally I judge the future actual curve to be closer to the bottom limit of your blue range [ bottom limit of the empirical model forecast range] . Unless you consider the impact of the ocean cycles as well[ which i understand that you do not consider, your forecast may be in error periodically when ocean cycles and sun cycles are not in sync[1945-1976]. The ocean cycles could modify or over ride the impact of the solar based cycle that you utilize. .

> There is no mathematical or scientific advantage to a 10 yea
> r period over a 13 year period simply because it has it’s own name, “decadal”.
Of course there are scientific advantages: 10 year period cancels most of solar cycle effects and most of ENSO effects and generally the period of at least 10 years in required to get statistically significant trend.

Mr. Hoffer: How about some investigation into whether the partially visible “up” trend in the “observations” is merely an artifact of GISTEMP? Could it be a “ringer” like the Yamal tree? If GISTEMP is removed, how would the line appear?

xeen@xxx.de says:
December 30, 2012 at 11:53 am
“> There is no mathematical or scientific advantage to a 10 yea
> r period over a 13 year period simply because it has it’s own name, “decadal”.
Of course there are scientific advantages: 10 year period cancels most of solar cycle effects and most of ENSO effects and generally the period of at least 10 years in required to get statistically significant trend.”

20 years are even better. Wait for it.
Need some scientific explanation for ongoing shifting of goalposts.

BTW, why do you want to remove “ENSO effects”? What scientific explanation is there to remove what a quarter of the Pacific Ocean does? Do you also remove Europe when it doesn’t fit your theory? Russia? Mr. X?

On decadal data….hmmm… if it is decadal….how does it start in 1986? Would they not have to start in 1981 to have a data point to plot in 1986?

Here’z WFT with hadrcut3 plotted from 1986-1012 both as monthly sample and as a 120 month mean. Note that the 120 month mean is blank for the first 5 years as there is insufficient data to calculate a decadal mean UNLESS they included data from 1981-1986 which would then be data from OUTSIDE their reference period.

xeen@xxx.de says:
December 30, 2012 at 11:53 am
“Of course there are scientific advantages: 10 year period cancels most of solar cycle effects”

Dang, and I didn’t watch the pea!

SOLAR EFFECTS! Hey! A warmist called Mr. X admits that there are solar effects! Now, Mr. X – here’s your reason why you will use 20 year averages in the 6th IPCC report. I’ll give it to you for free, you only need to write it in a peer reviewed paper, that’s how nice I am.

Because the current colar cycles are getting longer and longer. See? 10 years is no good! You need 20 years! And 30 years after that!

Follow the Money says:
December 30, 2012 at 12:07 pm
Mr. Hoffer: How about some investigation into whether the partially visible “up” trend in the “observations” is merely an artifact of GISTEMP? Could it be a “ringer” like the Yamal tree? If GISTEMP is removed, how would the line appear?

Wood for Trees letz you do that comparison fairly easily. In this case though they aren’t actually using the data directly. What they are citing is data from four papers that perform an analysis based on hadcrut3, giss, noaa and era. So, to see what they did from that perspective you’d have to read each and every one of those papers to see what each included, excluded, modified in some way for some reason…. more work than I’m prepared to do today.

“Bottom line? The temperature NOW is outside the 95% confidence range for all models and all scenarios.”
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That’s only true if you graph the unsmoothed temperature data from graph #1 onto the smoothed data from graph #2. On the first graph you can see that a few model projections (colored lines) lie below the current year temperature, but just barely. You can also see that the data output from those models declines slightly from the year 2000 to 2010 or they would lie above current temperatures. What is their reason for showing a decline? Did they backfit those models to more closely match observed temperature data?

ferd berple says:
December 30, 2012 at 10:24 am
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I agree that the ‘scientists’ will be thrown under the bus, but the public will be baying for the blood of their leaders. The political response to the percieved threat was hopelessly wasteful. This is clear from your own comment.
If you are concerned about global warming caused by global emissions of CO2, how does it help to relocate those emissions from the West to the developing nations? It does not reduce global emissions one iota, and hence it is clearly a stupid policy no matter whether the threat from CO2 was real or unreal. You do not have to be a scientist to see that if there is no net reduction in global emissions, the policy achieves nothing.
The same applies to the so called carbon taxes and permits. It does not achieve the goal, ie., a reduction in global emissions, it merely shifts the place where the emissions eminate from. It is a policy that fails to address the perceived threat from CO2.

Consider the pusuit for solar. Solar cannot possibly be a viable option in Northern Climes. Greatest energy consumption is in winter (when sunlight is weak and daylight hours short), and/or at night (when the sun does not shine). Solar might have a place in equitorial climes but it is hopeless for Northern Climes.
A similar observation applies to wind. It is intermittent and when needs are greatest, it is usually at its least efficient. This was really brought home in the UK a few years ago, and yet despite the obvious short comings, the politicians did not apply the brake but instead continue at full steam with the rush for wind.
You don’t employ an energy system which is at its weakest when peak demand is at it’s highest, and this point alone should obviously have ruled out both winds and solar as potential energy geberating alternatives to coal/gas/nuclear.
In fact, if you were concerned about emissions of CO2, nuclear would have to be on the table as it was (and still is) the only viable alternative to coal and gas.
The result of this stupid energy policy is that my electricty bill is just under 52% tax and a little over 48% cost of supply!! This is the result not of the scientists, but rather the stupid policies adopted by the politicians.
You do not have to be a scientist to immediately appreciate the shortcomings in the graphing that has underpined the whole of this scare. When I studied maths, I do not consider that anyone in the year 14 class would have put a straight line through the 20th century temperature record. A cursory glimpse of that data suggests that a straight line is not approriate. I consider the straight line linear approach adopted by so called ‘scientists’ to be the biggest single failure in this entire discipline of Earth sciences. It is a crass error that has obscured natural cycles which are apparent in the data set.
The politicians will not be able evade responsibility because they have been either complicit or wilfully negligent. In the UK when the Climate Change Act was passed, only a handful of MPs turned up to debate and vote. This is the most expensive piece of UK legislature with an annual bill exceeding 10billion pounds and yet MPs could not even be bothered to give it even a cursory scrutiny. If you are responsible for the management of a country and you cannot be bothered to scrutinise the most expensive piece of legislation in the country’s history, you will find it difficult to convince the general population that it is all the fault of the scientists, we were doing our job properly. The position is rendered even more difficult for the politicians since many of them have benefitted directly or indirectly from the implementation of green policies.

If I could figure out how to make the wft background clear, I could paste it onto the ipcc graph to illustrate.

Louis;
On the first graph you can see that a few model projections (colored lines) lie below the current year temperature, but just barely. You can also see that the data output from those models declines slightly from the year 2000 to 2010 or they would lie above current temperatures. What is their reason for showing a decline? Did they backfit those models to more closely match observed temperature data?
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

Each of the models is run multiple times for each scenario. Since each model attempts to capture natural variability, it is no surprise that of 116 model runs across 4 different emission scenarios, one or two temporarily fell below current observations. Of course, if they were to have used satellite observations instead,, I’m not sure if that would still be true. Even if it was, two model runs out of 116 doesn’t fall within the 95% confidence range.

> 20 years are even better. Wait for it.
Of course 20 years are even better, the side effect is you get no info about period after year 2002.

>BTW, why do you want to remove “ENSO effects”?
I don’t want to remove them, I want to make them to cancel. Reason is the same from which using year-period running mean makes sense and using 1.5-year running mean doesn’t, the latter won’t cancel summer-winter effects. It doesn’t mean that someone who is using one year periods “wants to remove” summers and winters.

>Do you also remove Europe when it doesn’t fit your theory? Russia? Mr. X?
Cancelation of Europe and Russia temperature data actually has been already done: by including temperature data from other places (where for example season of the year is always opposite to Europe’s and Russia’s one). And ENSO, Russia and Europe too actually fit the theory.

@DirkH
> SOLAR EFFECTS! Hey! A warmist called Mr. X admits that there are solar effects! (…)
Each of the IPCC reports had at least one chapter about solar effects. So as I understand you claim the IPCC members are anti-warmists.

> Now, Mr. X – here’s your reason why you will use 20 year averages in the 6th IPCC report. I’ll
> give it to you for free…
But as you claim I’m warmist and IPCC members are anti-warmists. So you should give this advice to someone else.

xeen@xxx.de
Cancelation of Europe and Russia temperature data actually has been already done: by including temperature data from other places (where for example season of the year is always opposite to Europe’s and Russia’s one).
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

Since the global anomaly is calculated from local anomalies which can be both positive and negative in both winter and summer, this statement is not only patently false, it reveals a complete lack of familiarity with the subject matter.

It is worth remembering too that the line marked “observations” on the charts, is not the raw data but data which has been adjusted, homogenized and normalized and as Steve Goddard has repeatedly shown, manipulated in an ever increasing upward direction. If the real data was used in the IPCC graphs the result would be even more painful for them to explain to the Public and Press.

It would be interesting to know why the IPCC thinks the temperature increases will be on the low side of their projections. What is happening in their minds to lead to such a statement?
=======================================================================
Perhaps they are beginning to realize that “Mother Nature” is hardly a model?

Actually I think the volcano statement has to do with the likely estimate of 2016-2035. But it should have said no LARGE volcanic eruptions?
b) … “An assessed likely range for the mean of the period 2016–2035 is indicated by the black solid bar.”
And then they say
c) A synthesis of ranges for the mean SAT for 2016–2035 using SRES CMIP3, RCPs CMIP5, observationally constrained projections (Stott et al., 2012; Rowlands et al., 2012; updated to remove simulations with large future volcanic eruptions)”

xeen@xxx.de says:
December 30, 2012 at 1:40 pm
@DirkH
> SOLAR EFFECTS! Hey! A warmist called Mr. X admits that there are solar effects! (…)
Each of the IPCC reports had at least one chapter about solar effects. So as I understand you claim the IPCC members are anti-warmists.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

MrX continues to demonstrate his lack of familiarity with the subject matter. The first four AR4 reports may have discussed solar effects, but they dismissed them as zero and ignored them in models. In the draft of AR5 they admit that they were wrong about ignoring them, then advise that their models result in a value opposite that of observations, suggesting that they got the physics completely backwards. Then they say it probably doesn’t matter since the amount is small. After getting it wrong by their own admission on existence and sign, I’m certain that we can trust them on the order of magnitude. That, and I have some swamp land for sale.

To pre-empt Leif, yes I know the data shows no correlation, but that isn’t my point. My point is that the IPCC keeps changing their mind about it and presents little or no evidence to show they have it anymore right now than they did before.

ferd berple says:
December 30, 2012 at 10:24 am
…..Science will be thrown under the bus by the politicians of the day to cover up their own role…..
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Yes and the Universities and professional societies will also get a well deserved black eye.

As I said in another comment government grants need to be gotten rid of. We can no longer afford them and I think public outrage at the amount of money “wasted” on grants will be part of throwing ‘Science’ under the bus. For politicians it will be a win-win, place blame and make a visible cut in spending.

xeen@xxx.de says:
December 30, 2012 at 1:40 pm
“@DirkH
> SOLAR EFFECTS! Hey! A warmist called Mr. X admits that there are solar effects! (…)
Each of the IPCC reports had at least one chapter about solar effects. So as I understand you claim the IPCC members are anti-warmists.”

Yes, they maintain that the effect is negligible. You said a decadal mean is necessary to erase solar effects from the record. You shouldn’t admit it; it’s politically inkorrekt. Don’t panic, I won’t tell them.

Mr. X again:
“Of course 20 years are even better, the side effect is you get no info about period after year 2002.”

That’s exactly what you want. You want your IPCC report to end with the big El Nino warming in 1998. Makes for the best headlines. Think for a moment, Mr. X. The choice between being efficient and being honest. Already forgotten? THINK! Try to remember!

True, but perhaps not in the way you originally meant. See the graphs below along with the slopes. The decadal trend line from 1986 has a slope of 0.0189858 per year. But the yearly line from 1986 has a slope of 0.0148151 per year. See:

Mr. Hoffer: How about some investigation into whether the partially visible “up” trend in the “observations” is merely an artifact of GISTEMP?
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
For what it is worth here is another method of looking at climate trends (zoom in on bottom graph)graph 1 the explanation
Or this graph 2 and graph 3 both indicative of the length of the summer season.

Sooner rather than later they are not going to be able to cover-up up the fact Mama GAIA is making a fool of them.

@davidmhoffer
> Since the global anomaly is calculated from local anomalies which can be both positive and
> negative in both winter and summer, this statement is not only patently false,
As local anomalies are calculated from local temperatures and transforming temperatures to anomalies is a way of making such a cancellation davimhoffer “reveals a complete lack of familiarity with the subject matter”

>first four AR4 reports may have discussed solar effects, but they dismissed them as zero
davidmhoffer continues to demonstrate his lack of familiarity with the subject matter. Zero over the full solar cycle, identically as summer-winter effects could be assumed zero over full year cycle.

@Richard Verney: You wrote something interesting.
” is that my electricty bill is just under 52% tax and a little over 48% cost of supply!”

Could you provide us with evidence of that? I would love to throw this into the face of a liberal engineer I know. Even more so, I would like to know what the taxes are as a result of the green initiatives.

After major rise in solar activity and temperatures during the first half of the 20th century, there was a downturn with weak solar cycle 20 (1964-1976) which overlapped with the global cooling scare. The cooling was quite substantial when seen in the data and articles of the time, such as http://tinyurl.com/cxo4d3l , before history was rewritten much later to make next to nil temperature downturn in typical CAGW-convenient recent revisionism, as if the global cooling scare occurred for no reason without a cause. Then came high-activity solar cycles 21 and 22, which were from 1976 to 1996 and coincided with the global warming scare developing.

Those two cycles (21 and 22) each had a substantially stronger solar-driven interplanetary magnetic field deflecting more galactic cosmic rays, as illustrated by an average neutron count being 3% less during each of them than during cycle 20. (Reference links are below*). There was extra warming of the atmosphere shortly afterwards by the 1998 El Nino, as in an echo effect releasing into the atmosphere some of the heat previously absorbed by the oceans. Relative to and since the 1998 El Nino, average global temperatures through now have been decreasing in RSS satellite data ( http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/rss/from:1998/plot/rss/from:1998/trend ). Meanwhile, solar cycle 23 of 1996-2008 started to drop down in intensity, with more substantial decline starting to occur now with the weak current cycle 24 (which will end its peak soon and then presumably very severely decline, which will make temperatures of several years from now and beyond quite interesting to watch).

*
Solar cycle 20: average count rate about 6180 as seen at
cosmicrays.oulu.fi/webform/query.cgi?startday=1&startmonth=10&startyear=1964&starttime=00%3A00&endday=1&endmonth=6&endyear=1976&endtime=23%3A30&resolution=Automatic+choice&picture=on

Solar cycle 21: average count rate about 5991 (relatively low number of undeflected GCRs, high solar magnetic activity) as seen at

“Wood for Trees letz you do that comparison fairly easily. In this case though they aren’t actually using the data directly. What they are citing is data from four papers that perform an analysis based on hadcrut3, giss, noaa and era.

Thank you, and for your site, Mr. Hoffer. I took a look at several via your site, and have an aesthetic, i.e., visual propaganda, er, observation. Above, the smoothed line in #2, looks, well, linear. The “observations” at #1 shows, to appearances, a steady trend. However, almost all the means of the data sets available at your site exhibit mean lines that rise to about 2002, then flat line.

Visually, and that’s what these graph games are really about, the “curve” would disempower the narrative of climate “change” being driven solely or mostly by AGs.

If anyone could remind me of the name of that British television show which had a flatbed truck/lorry or such cart around London a large picture of HS graph, I would be glad.

@DirkH
> Yes, they maintain that the effect is negligible.
… over full solar cycle identically as existence of winter-sumer cycle is negligible over the full year.
>You said a decadal mean is necessary to erase solar effects from the record.
I didn’t say nothing like that (there are no “necessary” or any similar word in my post).
There are of course other methods to remove solar effects. I said it’s one of scientific advantages of using 10-year running mean.

> That’s exactly what you want. You want your IPCC report to end with the big El Nino warming in
> 1998.
Another nonsense. When 20-year running mean used big 1998 El Nino effect will by canceled by big La Ninas which happened over 1988-2008 period.

LazyTeenager says:
December 30, 2012 at 2:52 pm
Any one notice that amoungst all those model runs that there appear to be a number that have stretches of 15years of no warming.
—————-
Yes, it would be good to see them against human CO2 emission levels for the same period, it may be meaningful?

The IPCC is the problem.
It does not matter what they say. It does not matter what they do. It does not matter what they predict. Nothing they claim, proclaim or imply is worthy of response or analysis. It’s all garbage all the time. The IPCC is part of the United Nations, all politics, all the time. Just pull the plug on all of it. Let the politicians get into some other mischief somewhere else.

The real tragedy has been mentioned by other posters. The surface temperature data has been manipulated to show a pre-ordained result. Most of it was never scientifically acquired in the first place. Eg. The historical NWS stations had rules for station quality and placement, but those rules were mostly ignored. Why did NOAA start an entirely new Climate Reference Network???
The answer is because the surface temp data are mostly garbage. You can’t recover good data from bad data, it’s just gone.

A few rural stations seem to show good data. Not surprisingly the good data shows zero warming.
Same with the Antarctic science stations, Amundsen-Scott, Vostok, Halley and Davis. All well maintained by different countries since the 1950s. All show zero warming. There is no reason for Antarctica to be immune from the “Global Warming by CO2″ conjecture. Those five full decades of data (1960s, 70s, 80s, 90s and 2000s) conclusively prove that the globe is NOT warming.

When the December temperatures come in will the thick squiggly worm dip lower? I guess with all that pre1990s warming at Byrd Station (which is doubtless the proxy(?) for the Southern Hemisphere Grid) it will get much warmer globally speaking.

How about a WUWT bet? In which month will the squiggly worm dip down to the 1990s level during the coming cooling phase? OK we have to decide upon which data set.

I am prepared to offer a prize of a bottle of London Porter for the first correct answer – if anybody actually reads this…

To set the worm squirming I shall come in at October 2015.

If it is possible to interpolate to a specific day or hour that could make it fun.

What’s the problem? They write ” it is more likely than not that actual warming will be closer to the lower bound of 0.4°C than the upper bound of 1.0°C” which basically means “it is more likely than not that models are overestimating the warming” and those graphs support that conclusion.
I don’t see any problem with those graphs.

xeen@xxx.de says:
December 30, 2012 at 3:27 pm
“@DirkH
> Yes, they maintain that the effect is negligible.
… over full solar cycle identically as existence of winter-sumer cycle is negligible over the full year.
>You said a decadal mean is necessary to erase solar effects from the record.
I didn’t say nothing like that (there are no “necessary” or any similar word in my post).
There are of course other methods to remove solar effects. I said it’s one of scientific advantages of using 10-year running mean.”

Good, complain, complain, what did you say:
“Of course there are scientific advantages: 10 year period cancels most of solar cycle effects”
So you didn’t say necessary, can we settle for sufficient, if we’re into picking nits.

So now please explain the correlation of the solar cycle with temperature as the IPCC sees it. I know what you’ll come up with, with some next to unmeasurably small variation in TSI that can’t possibly detected in the inaccurate surface temperature measurements the IPCC uses after much extrapolation and homogenization, and for which surely no decadal average would be necessary to blur them out.

Well, but it’s a nice scientific-sounding excuse for using the decadal average. Some points for propaganda. Every little bit helps.

LazyTeenager says:
December 30, 2012 at 2:52 pm
Any one notice that amoungst all those model runs that there appear to be a number that have stretches of 15years of no warming.
Be nice if the curves were not all overplayed so I could figure out just how frequent stretches of 15years of no warming actually are.
>>>>>>>

That would be nice, wouldn’t it? And if there was even one, they’d be putting out bulletins about how their models predicted periods like that and weren’t dead wrong on the topic after all. Instead, nothing but spaghetti, and I challenge you to isolate even a single piece of spaghetti on that graph which “appears” to support your assertion. Speaking of challenges, you still haven’t responded to my challenge from the other thread. Don’t worry, I didn’t forget, and to save you having to find it, I reproduce if for you here now:

davidmhoffer says:
December 24, 2012 at 6:12 pm
LazyTeenager;
More evidence might contradict naive expectations based on the physics.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

I hereby CHALLENGE you to explain the physics and why expectations based on the physics should be considered naive.

David M. Hoffer, “But in examining it, I noticed that something is missing. I’ll give everyone 5 minutes to go back and see if they can spot it for themselves.”

The projections are each and all missing physically valid error bars. That’s StOP for the field. The “5- 95% range” is merely the statistical bounds of inter-model variability. Numerical precision, in other words. An illustration of the physical uncertainty in GCM air temperature projections here (third figure), will tell you why physical uncertainty is never propagated in climate crisis studies. Interferes with the narrative, that does.

DirkH;
You’re arguing with someone who doesn’t understand the difference between earth’s annual orbit and solar cycles, and doesn’t see to know what an anomaly actually is. I’ve been trying to teach a pig to sing, would you like to lend a hand?

I understand now that it was late when you discovered that they ‘did hide the decline’ (again) and that you wanted to finish your article before completely understanding the meaning of the graphs you are commenting on;

Am I correct?

I didnt notice wether you did or did not read Daniel Rowlands article I provided you the Nature link for on December 30, 2012 at 6:15 am;

there is also an article in Science were you can find more about the source and meaning of the upper graph in your story, and some of the questions and remarks you (and others) made:

Martin van Etten says:
December 30, 2012 at 5:29 pm
@ davidmhoffer / December 30, 2012 at 8:56 am
dear Mr. Hoffer,
I understand now that it was late when you discovered that they ‘did hide the decline’ (again) and that you wanted to finish your article before completely understanding the meaning of the graphs you are commenting on;
Am I correct?
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

No, you are wrong.
As for articles in Nature and Science, I ceased reading those mags a long time ago as their content has become highly politicized and increasingly unrelated to science. In this case I made an exception and briefly looked at the article and graph you linked to. In typical fashion, it distracts from the issue rather than addressing it. The plain facts are, that as published, AR5 Ch11 SOD:

1. Shows conclusively that the models over estimate warming.
2. That the upper bound of their estimated range cannot possibly be supported by the evidence that they themselves provide (if such exists, then they should provide it)
3. Observational data in fact is outside the 95% confidence range of the model projections. Simply referring to the current temperature indices as published by HadCrut, GISS, UAH and RSS confirms this to be the case. Presenting the data as a decadal mean does not change this fact.

As for the science article you link to claiming warming faster than expected, not only is this in direct opposition to the science presented in AR5 without even bothering to compare to the most current data (which serves to emphasize that point) but I refer you also to the AR5 analysis of model accuracy via the ASK methodology, which they document in detail, and which yields the following observation:

Table 11.2 shows likelihoods of crossing specific temperature levels by 2050, based on the raw CMIP5 results and also moderated assessments that take into account the evidence discussed in 11.3.2.1.1 and 11.3.6.3 that those CMIP5 models that warm most rapidly may be inconsistent with observations.

So, you can link to all the “worse than we thought” articles you wish, the fact is that the current state of the science, as articulated by the IPCC, says that the warming is LESS than the spectrum of model results project, and at most at the very bottom end of that spectrum (but still not within the 95% confidence range)

Thanks for playing though. I’d been saving that quote for one accusation or another to my article, appreciate the excuse to slide it in.

Your statement, their conclusion in the article, is dead wrong. Dead lies. Deliberate lies, I should add.

The average world temperature for the past 16 years has NOT increased. This is not a “opinion” nor a “conclusion” …. It is a very simple “fact” from the satellite data and the surface temperature records.

Global average temperatures “today” in the real world are the same as they were in the late 1990’s. ….

Now, ANY so-called “weather” happening today MUST be reconciled against that fact.
Any “temperature-related” evidence for (or against!!!) “global warming” such as ice melt, glacier length, drought, draught, food, floods, feast or famine MUST be reconciled against the simple fact that today’s temperature is the same as it was in 1996-1997 time frame.

Just because you “want” to associate “future” weather – whether hotter, colder, warmer, drier, wetter, or icier with more (or less) “global warming” is irrelevant! Today’s global average TEMPERATURE is NOT hotter or colder than it was 16 years ago, so today’s “weather” CANNOT be associated with hotter (or colder) FUTURE temperatures!

Mr. Hoffer errs when he states that ” …unlike most of their projections, these ones will be falsified (or not) within the life times of most of this readership Predictions are susceptible to being falsified. Projections are not.

I think that it is interesting that we are expected to believe that “warming is occurring faster than expected” though there has been no “measured” increase in global temperatures for 16 years. It was certainly not predicted/modelled 16 years ago that there would be cooling which is the only way to reconcile these statements. Is there anywhere where the scientists who promote the AGW theory state unequivocally how many years of data collection which does not support the theory will effectively render it disproved by evidence?

Forget the political spin about “dirty weather” etc and every time it is hot/cold/wet/dry we have evidence of CAGW. At what point in the evidence trail would the scientists be prepared to say they are wrong?

I brought the Nature and Science article to your attention because I wanted to show you that not all science is “hiding the decline” as Mr Hoffer is suggesting;

by studying the graph I suggested you will see (or could have seen) that both publications show no warming at all in period you mention, and even a little bit of decline, Mr Hoffer Hoffer suggests that has been hidden (see the headline above his article);

so you don’t have to emphasize with strong bold statements that “global average TEMPERATURE is NOT hotter or colder;

again, the only purpose bringing to your attention this graph from Rowlands et al is that science is not hiding this decline;

To the guy exhorting journalists to ‘win a Pulitzer’ over this issue, I’m afraid to say that there is no incentive for any new entrants to the field, as there are a few journalists who already have written sufficient articles saying ‘case not proven (e.g. Chris Booker) or WALOFB (James Delingpole) in the UK alone to mean that the prize, were it ever to be awarded, would go to those already active in the field.

As a result, no prizes for new journos and plenty of grief until the tipping point is reached.

Anyway, journos are paid to write what they write nowadays, so you’d better find a billionaire philanthropist who will fund 5 years of skeptic articles in the advertorials……

The model position is simple; they simply project the assumptions made by the modeller.

One assumption common to all models is that increasing CO2 leads to warming. Hence, whenever there is an annual (or decadal) increase in CO2, the model projects a warming. It has to do so since this is the ‘basic’ physic response which is written into the heart of the model.

The model can never project a period of temperature stasis in the face of rising CO2 levels as this goes against the basic assumption that has been programmed into the model.

The model can only produce a period of stasis if some fudge factor is additionally incorporated such as to programme in a period of say 15 years when natural variation will extinguish the warming that CO2 would otherwise produces, or to programme in a decade of high volcanic activity which is assumed to extinguish the warming that a rise in CO2 concentrations will otherwise produce, or to programme in a decade of ENSO factors which will extinguish the warming which a rise in CO2 concentrations will otherwise produce.

In short, as far as the models are concerned, there can only be stasis when some natural factor (unexplained natural variation, increasing cloudiness, increase in CO2 sinks, solar, volcanoes, ENSO or the like) and/or some anthropogenic factor such as manmade aerosol emissions overcomes the build in warming that CO2 would otherwise produce,

What is clear from the satellite data is that we do not understand enoygh about the climate to write a worthwhile model and their projections are way off target confirming their shortcomings. An objective observer would (at this stage) consign the models to the bin.

I personally do not like the weasel differentiation between projections and predictions. If the projections carry no weight, why are governments acting upon them as if they are scared that the projection will come to pass.

If model projections are no more than meaningless projections, that should clearly be stated in the report, ie., ‘these are no more than projections based upon the assumptions that have been written into the model being correct. Presently there is no evidence to establish that those assumptions are correct, and presently the models are diverging significantly from observational evidence of the past X years [insert number such as 15 or 20 or 30] suggesting that the assumptions programmed in to the model are incorrrect. Accordingly, observational evidence suggests that temperature changes will not in practice occur in the manner projected by the models’ .

if we leave out the “day’s end” remark, its getting even more strange when you talk about “hiding the decline”, while the article of Rowlands et al and the graph you are commenting on in my opinion are not showing any hiding of a decline at all, so, I guess, the headline of your article is definitely wrong;

that is why my first remark was (naively) purely informative: “here is another graph”;

some other remarks:

further on you write: “Is the first graph serious? 154 data plots all scrambled together are supposed to have some meaning?”

Yes this is serious and it has a meaning, and again, it sometimes pays off to read an article to understand the meaning of the graph you are commenting on;

later in your article you conclude “It gets worse”, than you draw a red line in the graph, shouting “Hah! Nailed it!”

this has no use: here you show that you don’t understand at all what the issue and the article are about; in this case it really is a pity that you stopped reading articles from Science and Nature, because, you say, they are “highly politicized and increasingly unrelated to science”;

however, you still you comment on them and you don’t correct your readers when they also comment without reading the articles on which these graphs are based, for instance when they talk about “spaghetti” and other non-relevant matters;

the ‘spaghetti’ you are laughing about is made of individual climate model runs that came out from the so called climateprediction.net project run by climate scientists from the UK in coöperation with the BBC and tens of thousands private persons how provided their local computers for the modelling;

if you do some googling you will find out that this has been the biggest and most democratic science project ever, and that it is in a way an insult to put the results without studying in the garbagebin by saying this investigation as “highly politicized”;

in fact it was the only scientific project that I am aware of, in which layman participated and could have some control over, at least by knowing what is going on; I know, because I was one of the people participating;

the whole project has indeed some other purpose than “hiding the decline”;
to give some hint: it was designed to give upper and lower boundaries of the outcome of model runs that predict future climate AND that were able to calculate the actual climate (now) from an initial state with parameter set to the beginning of the 20 th century, lets say 1910;

I am glad that ‘our’ investigation materialised in an article in Nature by Rowlands et al and that it is now discussed in the coming AR5;

I’am looking forward to read the final report and, although I am blaming you for writing in a disinformed and insulting way about the work that has be done by thousands of enthousiast people, I am thankfull that you brought the project to a wider audience;

in fact we do not stand so far away from each other: my purpose to participate was to look inside the climate modelling world and to see and to see what is happening there;

The precise breakdown varies from bill to bill and sometimes I get one bill a month, sometimes two.
The electricity supplier is Iberdrola a large Spanish electricity supplier (I seem to recall that they are not simply a large national supplier but they also have a stake in one of the large UK energy suppliers and are players on the international market in Europe).

Their bills are quite good since they show a pie chart giving you an insight into how the bill is made up. They also include a statement explaining matters. I have selected a bill at random, it states in column 2 (which is headed invoicing) “Description of electricity supply costs. Of the Euro 45.12 you pay, Euro 25.04 goes to paying taxes and other charges established by law which are not related to the supply. The remaining Euro 20.08 goes to paying for energy production and supply and payments made to the national grid.”

This particular bill was no doubt one of two that I received that month so it is unusually low, However, it will be noted that the costs of supply Euro 20.08 is only 45% of the total bill (Euro 45.12) and that taxes and other charges established by law (Euro 25.04) represents 55% of the total bill (Euro 4512). These latter are taxes and green levies for subsidies paid for green energy supply.

Spain is of course infamous for the green subsidies given to producers of solar energy. It has been found that many such producers supply electricity to the grid 24 hours a day. One might consider that to be surprising given that the sun does not shine at night! Investigations have revealed that many such suppliers use diesel generators to supply energy at night since the costs of running a diesel generator are less than the subsidy they get on their feed in tariff!! An example of a green policy gone mad since small diesel generators are no doubt heavy polluters.

The Spanish economy is broken. There are numerous people who are lucky to have some employment but are struggling to survive on an annual income of Euro 10,000 fretting how they will manage to get by on a day to day basis. Their lives are filled with financial worries. Probably the typical consumer is paying about Euro 1,000 annually in taxes/green subsidies. Just imagine how their plight would be ameliorated if they only had to incur say Euro 100 annually on their energy bills. In Spain, petrol is typically about Euro 1.45 per litre. It is taxes and green levies that are driving this price. There is no good reason why petrol should not be 80 cents (or even less) per litre. Again the annual saving to the typical citizen would be significant especially bearing in mind the average wage.

It is easy to see the extent of misery that has been piled upon the typical individual because of the green zealots and the mad policies that governments have employed to deal with a perceived threat which has no quality data to back it up. In Greece there have been a number of suicides because of financial concerns. The government may not be able to fix the fiscal debt caused by the banking/financial market fiascos, but could overnight reduce the green burden on its citizens. A government could immediately withdraw all green subsidies, stop all green levies and taxes, if it so desired.
The costs of electricity supply in Spain could be halved (since more than 50% of the total bill is taxes and subsidies) if only there was political wherewithal to achieve that goal. I do not know what rebate industry gets but unless it gets a substantial concession, Spanish industry will inevitably be uncompetitive in the global market. Cheap abundant and stable energy should be the goal of any sensible elected government. It benefits the consumer and industry alike.
The politicians bear a heavy responsibility for the present economic depression and the woes of the typical citizen which have been greatly exacerbated by green taxes and levies on almost every day to day item.

“If I could figure out how to make the wft background clear, I could paste it onto the ipcc graph to illustrate.”

I can do it in Excel for you if you like, in fact I have already done that for the top chart. You will find most of the monthly numbers do not even fall in the ranges they have pre 1999. They all are much higher then their shaded areas from the IPCC graph. Shows hindcasting not so good???

I will now do one for the bottom graph. I can send them to you if you like to post em (not sure how to get your email address). Or I can tell you how to do it in Excel if you like.

correction: The anomaly baseline is shifted upward with your graph compared to the IPCC graph. So the baseline years being compared for the anomaly are different. But shifting down is easily done. Not sure what the correct number should be by i biased your WFT graph by -0.25 as an approximated delta between baselines.

my purpose to participate was to look inside the climate modelling world and to see and to see what is happening there;
====================================
Thank you for your contribution.

Global climate models are simply contrivances that are devised to project an indefinite warming trend, as per the AGW theory algorithmically incorporated into the models. They cannot forecast climate and the modelers will admit this if you pin them down, yet at the same time the modelers demand that these dubious charts should be the basis for policy decisions. What do you think?

$ Billions in funds were squandered in making these. In fact, climate modeling has become a major source of employment for theoretical physicists, who otherwise would have no work prospects. The spaghetti graph you see represents those $ billions. Those billions would have brought much benefit if put to good work in some other type of research. While pondering the significance of the colorful spaghetti, you might consider that you, yourself, could draw a squiggley line for much less than what the modelers charged.

The last warming trend ended in 1997 and a definite cooling set in some ten years ago, and the modelers have accomodated that by increasing the amplitude of the squiggles. Thus climate modeling and the AGW scare. Happy New Year, stay warm,
mpainter

Once again without the provocative ads. If Mods want to delete previous posts with other links, please feel free to do so. Sorry for trashing this with to many bad posts. Have not much experience in picture posting.

These show the overlay of wood for tree graph from David link above superimposed on the two IPCC charts. I biased Dave’s WFT graph by -0.25 as an approximated delta between anomaly baselines between WFT and the IPCC charts.

“…it was designed to give upper and lower boundaries of the outcome of model runs that predict future climate AND that were able to calculate the actual climate (now) from an initial state with parameter set to the beginning of the 20 th century, lets say 1910″

Please can you give a reference for any paper published before 2000 that correctly predicted the actual climate now? Retrofitted models do not cut it, they are just smoke and mirrors and anybody with any sense at all knows it.

IPCC figure 2 with the following superimposed on the graph:
WFT monthly values from 1986-2012.
WFT Trend line from 1986-2012 projected to 2050
WFT Trend line from 1998-2012 projected to 2050 (my cherry picked numbers)

Why do people assume that because a green house gas is increasng then so should temperature follow this increase exactly?

The GHE is small but insidious.

Look on it as a drip of water entering a jacuzzi with no safety overflow – if the jacuzzi is switched off then a slow rise in water height can be measured. Switch on the turbulance. Does this stop the drip?
The water level will now move up and down at random but – if you measure the height you may decide that the water level is flat or even falling – but is the total volume really static?
Can you leave it dripping an go away for a year? Or will it eventually overflow id the jacuzzi is off orON?

I have made a totally nonscientific, non-predictive simulation of hadcrut3v temperatures using sine waves. This shows that a 60year cycle is on its way down and this is more than capable of holding the temperature increase due to GHGs – BUT the GHG effect is still there and on the next upswing the temperature starts to rise wit a vegance.
the plot is here:

but remeber this is simply showing that an underlying trend can be masked by a sinusoid with no trend – it is not meant to predict temperatures!!
All the figures for this are availble as a spreadsheet.

Just because temperatures and GHG levels do not follow each other does not mean that the undelying temperature trend does not match the insiduous drip, drip, drip of a trend caused increasing GHGs.

Looks like the Met Office continues to predict very high global temperatures. The prediction for 2012 was 0.48 C. The hadcrut3gl actual is 0.417 C to the end of November. The prediction for 2013 is to be between 0.43 C and 0.71 C with best estimate of around 0.57 C. This would be highest temperature yet . Their decadal forecast is about 0.8 C by 2020. So their forecasts continue to be high year after year and it can only be perhaps deliberate in my opinion as no weather organization can be off that often due to incompetence alone . This is the same organization that predicts the global temperatures to rise by 4C by 2060

Since these models can’t make predictions, only projections, and since that means they can’t ever be falsified or validated either way as Terry Oldberg has pointed out on this thread and others (having done some 4 years of research into the modelling system I believe he said), how does the IPCC even get away with incorporating them in their reports as such am important part of the overall process?

I guess I am only echoing here Richard Verney’s comment, but I would also like to suggest something. It was mentioned how built into the models is the fundamental assumption that as CO2 rises, temperatures will rise. Why not build in a different fundamental assumption into a different model – that CO2 will not have any effect on the future temperatures. Have the same interactions of other climate forcings and variables in both the CO2 and non-CO2 models. Then make projections using both, and see which ends up being closer in the future.

Before anyone says “well they won’t do that because the entire IPCC mandate is based on CO2 controlling temperature” – why couldn’t it be done outside of the IPCC? Surely climate modellers dont HAVE to do it all one way, or am I being incredibly naive (I probably am).

Why stop at just a CO2/non-CO2 comparison? Make 1000s of different models with different configurations, with different forcings as the “primary variable” if you like. Then in the future just see what’s worked out the best!

Not that this would replace the scientific method in any way. It would just be using the models in an objective way, for their intended use (surely?) In other words if the model configuration that produces the closest result to the observed temps over time also most closely relates to the current understanding of the climate at that time (some point in the future) then you have some corroborating “evidence” to support that understanding of the climate as being likely correct. Keep the projections running. Which one is still right in 30/60 years time? Are any of them? Use them as a tool to assist the scientific method but definitely NOT as a means for policy makers to make decisions.

“During 2012 our decadal prediction system was upgraded to use the latest version of our coupled climate model. The forecasts and retrospective forecasts shown here have been updated to reflect this change.”

George Orwell wrote: “He who controls the past controls the future. He who controls the present controls the past.” The nightmare predicted for 1984 did not happen. But now it has.

I’d like to quote from Edward R. Tufte’s “The visual display of quantitative information”, the Chaper on Graphical Excellence concludes with the following which I think apply to the graphs described here:

Graphical excellence is the well-designed presentation of interesting data – a matter of substance, of statistics, and of design.
Graphical excellence consists of complex ideas communicated with clarity, precision and efficiency.
Graphical excellence is that which gives the viewer the greatest number of ideas in the shortest time with the least ink in the smallest space.
Graphical excellence is nearly always multivariate.
And graphical excellence requires telling the truth about the data.

Martin van Etten says:
December 31, 2012 at 4:13 am
@ davidmhoffer / December 30, 2012 at 5:55 pm
Dear David,
if we leave out the “day’s end” remark, its getting even more strange when you talk about “hiding the decline”, while the article of Rowlands et al and the graph you are commenting on in my opinion are not showing any hiding of a decline at all, so, I guess, the headline of your article is definitely wrong
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

The AR5 Ch11 SOD draft presents the information in such a manner that makes it seem as if it is consistent with the 95% confidence range of the models. Examining the raw data shows that this is not the case, that in fact temps have declined below the 95% confidence range. Averaging the temps below the confidence range with temps above the confidence range on the excuse that the decadal average is somehow relevant is at best, incompetent, at worst, deliberately deceptive. It really doesn’t matter in the least what studies you participated in, nor what they show. What we’re interested in is what data the IPCC is presenting and what it shows because that is what the IPCC is asking the world’s leaders to make decisions upon. When we cease using deceptive means such as decadal averages imposed on less than 3 decades of data, for which there is no plausible purpose, and instead look at the data directly, the fact is that current temps are below the 95% confidence range of the models, making it (to use IPCC terminology) highly certain that the models are wrong.

In addition, it is important to note the second conclusion I drew everyone’s attention to, which is that the upper bound of the IPCC estimates simply cannot be supported by any data they present. To hit 1 degree of warming over the 2016-2035 period, we’d need an acceleration in warming to a rate more than 3 times the rate we have ever seen in the instrumental era, and it would have to start right now. Every year that goes by means an even higher rate of warming for the years left. If we see no warming for about 4 years, the IPCC will need 4x or 5x warming to hit their upper bound. They don’t even have a physics basis to build this upon. Their consensus estimate is for 3 degrees of warming per CO2 doubling (feedbacks included) with time to equilibrium being in the decades at minimum, more likely centuries. We’re only at 40% of doubling now, and might hit 50% by 2035. To achieve 6 degrees per century to hit their upper bound estimate, we’d need sensitivity to be on the order of 20 degrees per doubling and for equilibrium to be nearly instant, let alone decades or centuries.

So why is a number that is unsupportable by the data presented, by the models presented, and by the physics claimed in earlier reports, in the report in the first place? It is there so that alarmists can quote the IPCC as saying “as much as 1 degree” in the hopes the otherwise intelligent people will accept it at face value rather than look at the data themselves, and if they do bother to look at the IPCC reports, thjat they will be fooled by a cursory glance at a chart deceptively presented with decadal averages which serve to hide the facts.

Deceptive? I find it hard to argue that the presentation as we see it in AR5 SOD is anything but. The real question is if calling it deceptive is strong enough language. Given the restrictions on personal liberty and the poverty that will result from the actions being proposed on the basis of IPCC projections, I favour “beneath contempt”.

It looks like the Met Office have changed their previous decadal forecast of 0.8C by 2020 to that shown below but their forecast for 2013 seems at the high end of their decadal forecast. They are using different base periods or averages which confuse the issue . The decadal forecast seems to say that the global temperatures will be flat but the annual forecast calls for significant or record warming ? Confusing?

Latest MET Office decadal forecast dated December 24,2012
Global average temperature is expected to remain between 0.28 °C and 0.59 °C (90% confidence range) above the long-term (1971-2000) average during the period 2013-2017, with values most likely to be about 0.43 °C higher than average ).

Latest MET Office annual 2013 forecast dated December20,2012
20 December 2012 – 2013 is expected to be between 0.43 °C and 0.71 °C warmer than the long-term (1961-1990) global average of 14.0 °C, with a best estimate of around 0.57 °C, according to the Met Office annual global temperature forecast.

David M. Hoffer, I don’t doubt for a minute that the models have over-estimated their projections of current temps, the problem I think begins with the talk of 95% confidence intervals. This implies that the models are part of a statistical process and hence the projections can be validated or falsified statistically. The trouble is that they’re not predictions, they’re projections, if they were making scientific predictions these could be validated or falsified statistically, but they’re not, so they can’t.

I think perhaps we are giving these projections more credence than they should be getting simply by discussing it as if they can be validated/falsified in the first place (i.e “16 years of no warming invalidates models”, etc). The IPCC model process was never scientific in the first place so should be attacked on those grounds, right at the root of the problem. Attacking it on grounds such as are presented in this post, almost make it seem as though we’re accepting that it WAS a scientific process originally. In which case the IPCC gets more “weight” behind it’s projections than it deserves, whether they’re right or wrong!

herkimer says: December 31, 2012 at 10:26 am: “The decadal forecast seems to say that the global temperatures will be flat but the annual forecast calls for significant or record warming ? Confusing?”

Yes sir, I am very confused! But not to worry, I am sure that the Met Office’s future retrospective forecasts will sort out the confusion for us.

David – I also favour “beneath contempt”. In the UK our biofuels, windmills and solar farms have already pushed up food and fuel prices to the point that our kids go to bed hungry and our old folk have to choose between heating and eating. The modellers at the Met Office have provided the data that enabled these policies of criminal insanity to be written into government legislation (the Climate Change Act). These people already have blood on their hands.

thefordprefect says: December 31, 2012 at 8:24 am
==========================
The last warming trend ended in 1997 and is history. We presently are cooling and this trend is expected to continue in accord with the usual fluctuation of climate. Nothing new under the sun.

By the way, were you aware that crop yields have ben enhanced by anthropogenic CO2? This is a fact, and present crop yield models are being modified to accomodate that welcome news. So, Happy New Year, stay warm.
mpainter

Graham W says: December 31, 2012 at 10:28 am
=================================
You have a valid point in that the very basis for the models is false assumptions.
However, the whole of the AGW movement is a propaganda mill fed by dubious science. It seems important to focus attention on particular methods of deception and expose such practices to public scrutiny, as David Hoffer has so commendably done in his postings.

To proclaim that AGW is wrong from the very start and leave it at that is to concede the field to the global warmers- and this would be a mistake, I think.

As confusing as the Met Ofiice annual global forecast is, their long term forecast of 4C rise by 2060 is even more absurd . To look at Davids Hoffer’s graph with his red line , one would have to draw an even steeper line to meet 4C by 2060. In my opinion,. it is absolutely amazing that this type of garbage climate science is being put out by a governmental body in the name of science.One can see why people are becoming less and less trustful of science and especially climate science.

I take your point mpainter, and I didn’t mean to come across like I was saying it’s not worthwhile to point out ALL the flaws in the AGW argument wherever possible…I do think it’s worthwhile. I just think the IPCC are playing the long game. They’re not worried if their projections are off – they’ll just say “it’s a developing science, they’ll get better in the future wait and see”…it’s a game that they’re playing and they invented the rules of the game (the models). In a way, by arguing that these models can be validated or falsified statistically, we are implicitly agreeing to play their game by their rules. But can they be beaten at their own game? They’ve got an awful lot of bets riding on it.

If i may say so in the above article and the comments made by both warmists and deniers (haha), it is forgoton that all data sets are incorrect from say 1880 to 2012, except for CET rural station. (we only have satellite data from 1979 and that shows nothing flat zero zilch as they say).The UHI effect is incredibly obvious and cities have grown and airports are busier etc. In fact, I would dare say that ALL the increase that is reported to 2010 (~0.6C) and now to 2012 (~0.3C), is actually artificial. The only set you could believe is probably CET central england temperature (earliest one) and I believe that shows nothing zero zilch.So I conclude that there has been no significant change in mean global temperatures since 1880, so I am therefore what is termed a “REAL DENIER”, haha

@richard verney: Thank you for the breakdown of the corruption for us. Having examples helps remind us that it is indeed to be expected that the larger public trough, the more pigs there will be to take the money and benefit from it at the expense of the others’ right to be free to keep the fruits of their productivity. I do believe that local governments should be able to tax as they see fit for the benefit of all – but not for the benefit of chosen groups beyond the helpless. Now, how do we define helpless…? There is the downward spiral of the socialist creed.

As we enter 2013 with a draft of the IPCC’s AR5 available thanks to one step towards transparency, I started wondering about the time it takes the IPCC to produce these reports. AR5 began in July 2009 with meetings in Venice, followed by meetings in Liege, Bali, Busan, Kumming, Tsukuba, Changwon City, Brest, San Francisco, to produce a first draft from Working Group 1 (the physical science) for expert review by Feb 2012. http://www.ipcc.ch/activities/key_dates_AR5_schedulepdf.pdf
After another round of meetings in various delightful locations, the second order draft of WG1 for Government and expert review was delivered in November 2012. Drafts of WG2 (impacts) and WG3 (mitigation) are due by May 2013, Lead authors of WG1 will meet in Hobart in January to review the comments received (WUWT has added to their workload!), WG1 assessment report is scheduled to be approved in Stockholm in September 2013, with WG2 and 3 reports to be approved in March/April 2014,
Then the core writing team will work from April to October 2014 to produce the final Synthesis Report ready for COP20 in December 2014. So much for the need for urgent action on catastrophic anthropogenic global warming!
Happy New Year to all.

….The UHI effect is incredibly obvious and cities have grown and airports are busier etc. In fact, I would dare say that ALL the increase that is reported to 2010 (~0.6C) and now to 2012 (~0.3C), is actually artificial. The only set you could believe is probably CET central england temperature (earliest one) and I believe that shows nothing zero zilch.So I conclude that there has been no significant change in mean global temperatures since 1880, so I am therefore what is termed a “REAL DENIER”, haha
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>…
Actually there is a bit more evidence they have not mucked with.
Zoom on bottom graph: graph Explanation link

Hi there!
Just a quick question.. What is the dashed line in the first two graphs supposed to mean?
(Before you answer, please realize that today is the last day of 2012 and within a few hours all data of this year will be historical!)
I really dont think the next IPCC-report should rely on models which are about 7 years old, if I understood the meaning of that dashed line correctly..

Fascinating article (well the abstract is anyway, as the main page is paywalled) …. but , you think it is proof of what, exactly? That there are a LOT more models out there that are “wronger” than those David M. Hoffer showed above? (excuse the new word, seems appropriate).

Now isn’t THAT a reassuring statement: multi thousand member […] model simulations?

We find that model versions that reproduce observed surface temperature changes over the past 50 years show global-mean temperature increases of 1.4–3 K by 2050, relative to 1961–1990, under a mid-range forcing scenario.

Which David clearly pointed out the IPCC ar5 summary thinks will be pretty difficult to meet….

This range of warming is broadly consistent with the expert assessment provided by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Fourth Assessment Report10, but extends towards larger warming than observed in ensembles-of-opportunity5 typically used for climate impact assessments.

“…but extends towards larger warming…[than typical climate assessments]…”
And we can clearly see from the charts posted that that will likely make these model projections “more wrong”…

But another inescapable point arises …. “…show global-mean temperature increases of 1.4–3 K by 2050, relative to 1961–1990, under a mid-range forcing scenario….”

If anyone builds an “energy balance” computer model, of any scale, of any type…. that model simply MUST show a temperature increase if you apply a forcing (ie more energy in than out)….
So, the results are as expected …

The question is whether the existence, mechanism and scale of the forcing is actually correctly calculated.

And the leaked IPCC ar5 charts are starting to show clear evidence that it may not be.

….Before anyone says “well they won’t do that because the entire IPCC mandate is based on CO2 controlling temperature” – why couldn’t it be done outside of the IPCC?….
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
It has been done but the people are making their living as accurate weather forecasters so they are not about to put their trade secret out there for everyone else.

These are the guys who gave Mayor Bloomberg advanced warning of Sandy and they are the same people he blew-off.

High noon has arrived for AGW supporting scientists.Unless they begin to cut back their past high predictions and they can only do this if they finally acknowledge that their science and the various assumptions behind their models have been seriously flawed with respect to the impact of CO2. I see that the Met Office have finally started to cut back their decadal global annual temperature forecast to 0.43 C to 2017. If one compares the December 2011 with the December 2012 forecasts, their straight line warming prediction to 0.8 C by 2020 has now been flattened to 0.43 C to 2017. Someone has come to their senses. The next phase will be to project the figure to drop even further to 0.2 C by 2030 as the sun and GLOBAL ocean SST cycles continue to decline as they have done during the last decade.

You continue to miss the point. AR5 is supposedly representative of the current state of climate science which they present in their report. What they present barely makes their lower bound estimate credible, let alone their upper bound which is ridiculous. As I said in an earlier reply to you, if additional evidence exists, they should include it. They have not. Either they are preparing a state of the art report for the world’s leadership, or they aren’t.

REFERENCE THE NOTED ABOVE PAPER
“We find that model versions that reproduce observed surface temperature changes over the past 50 years show global-mean temperature increases of 1.4–3 K by 2050, relative to 1961–1990, under a mid-range forcing scenario.”

The observed surface temperature rise hadcrut3gl for the last 50 years is only 0.01439 C per year least square trend line slope. or about 0.72 degrees . How this becomes 1.4 to 3 K during the next 50 years is the model mystery and no longer represents the observed in my opinion but a completely new slope, unrelated to the observed that rise 2- 4 times faster than the past observed. THIS IS MADE STRANGER STILL AS THE OBSERVED CURVE HAS BEEN DECLINING THE LAST 10 YEARS

Martin van Etten;
these runs started in 1920, you can find it also in the literature and on the
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

AR5 Ch11 contains a discussion of model runs initiated at several intervals in time. The further back in time they are initiated, the hotter they are and the further from reality compared to current observational data. I am pretty much done writing articles on Ch11, the glaring stupidity has already been pointed out. But if you really insist, I can either write a long blog reply or (at Anthony’s discretion) a whole new article explaining why you are dead wrong on this and the AR5 literature says so. The evidence that the models have a systemic warming bias that is unrealistic is rather obvious.

As for your promise to answer me “tomorrow”, I always laugh when someone says something like that. 9 times out of 10 it means “I’ve got no idea what to say so I’ve written to some other warmist for help and they haven’t replied yet”

If you had a credible response on your own, you would have simply stated it.

You continue to miss the point
==============================
I don’t believe that Martin van Etten is the type that ever gets the point. He don’t wanna, soo, he ain’t gonna. Eventually he will disappear.

on New Years Day the world is bigger than wuwt; so keep on laughing; anyway the best wishes for the new year;

there is no hope you get rid of me as long as you keep your untenable position “Hiding the Decline (Part II)” and that you keep smearing the IPCC with arguments that in my opinion are not valid;

my first three postings here are just about the headline of your article and the connected paragraph that starts with “They hid the decline!”

maybe you can recall that I agreed with the initial remark of lsvalgaard and that I suggested to wait for your reply; next to that I provided you with links to the original article from Rowlands et al in Nature, because your figure1 (the IPCC-graph) is based on this information;

than you started to deny the point that you were a bit overenthousiastic in ‘discovering’ that the IPCC ‘did it again': that they “hid a decline” (= a standstill in temperature since 1998) what makes their modelpredictions questionable;

this is however nothing new because temperatures seem not to be rising since 1998 and seem to be stalling on + 0,5 degree Celcius above pre-industrial level, ‘wrecking’ most predictions that see rising temperatures;

here it is extra strange that you hold on to this ‘hiding the decline” idea because you present an IPCC figure the makes it again very clear that the temperatures are lagging behind predictions;
(see your ‘Hah! Nailed it!” figure where you ‘show’ that upper end of the likely range will be difficuly attainable by nature)

your readers do not have to believe you or me, they even don’t have to be a specialist in climate matters, they just can see with their own eyes in your figure 1 that the IPCC presents a graph where the observations are at the very, very, very bottom of the range of predictions;

I also don’t agree with your statenment that the real world temperature is outside the range of predictions; thats why I provided you with the link to the Rowlands article in Nature and the prediction and graph published there (and that is of sufficient size to understand in the Science link I gave you);

your argument not to accept decadal means in your figure 2 – according to your article that IS the denial – is not valid, because this grapgh goes back to 1920, the start of the model runs of the climateprediction.net experiment:
you said the period is too short, but you don’t accept the method when it is clear that the period it is long enough…,

so it is difficult to discuss with you, first you dont read the literature (‘it is too politicised’), than you start insulting the people that coöperated (what is this garbage of “spaghetti”) and last but not least, you don’t accept arguments that counter your statements;

well, I keep on trying: please do read the BBC article about the Rowlands publication and the connection with the climateprediction.net project:

“Myles Allen of the School of Geography and Environment and Department of Physics, Oxford University, principal investigator of climateprediction.net, said other climate modelling groups’ data did not “set out to explore the full range of uncertainty, which is why studies like ours are needed.”
and:
“The research was described as “an important step toward estimating uncertainty more comprehensively,” by Gabi Hegerl, professor of climate system science at the University of Edinburgh.”

you could also take note of the announcement of this article on my website about climate and environment and follow the link there to an earlier article that I wrote in October 2007 – in Durch, but the graph however will be understandable:

I would also like to draw your attention to the Second Order Draft (SOD) of chapter 11 of the AR5, paragraph 11.3.6.3, remarks 1 to 5, espacially remark 4 that says:
“Over the last to decades the rate of global warming that has been observed is at the lower end of rates simulated by CMIP 5 models” (Page 11-58, see stopgreensuicide.com for a copy of the illegally leaked draft)

see also point 5: all the projections rely on climate models to some extent. As emphasised in the Introduction to 11.3.6 there maybe processes operating in the real world that are missing from, or inadequately represented in the models.”

so in my opinion you cannot maintain the position that ‘they’ “are hiding the decline”

it is also very contra-productive because the real question here is from a different order:

it should be: why are the models wrong, why is reality lagging behind the predictions?

and, see point 4 on page 11 – 58 of chapter 11: “is there an imminent acceleration in the rate of observed warming” to be expected?

a very important question for the policymakers you are so concerned about (See the unpreparedness in the ‘Sandy’ discussion);

Hi Martin: You might be pleased to read some good information by checking out Bob Tisdale’s works. He convincingly explains that we do know much more about where the heat is stored and released in the oceans – and how natural change can explain the measured warming and cooling we’ve observed. The fantasy that CO2 drives climate is based on not more than a short term correlation which is why there’s so much need to adjust, hide, change the past, etc etc.

For me? I think all evidence points that CO2 is the stuff of life, without which there is no life on earth. Though, like you, I am worried about pollution. Unfortunately, burning fossil fuels does release some pollution, but the CO2 part is not pollution. If we focus on the science, instead of the politics, we could have credible policy in place to limit pollution to acceptable levels without demonizing CO2.

All the foregoing is relevant – but what about the Urban Heat factor..? More and more recording instruments are in what could only be described as an ‘urban environment’…
Our tv weather forecasters here in the UK are forever cautioning; ‘It may be 4 degrees C in towns and cities; but could be below freezing in rural areas..’
See..?? Even the meteorologists admit it..!

Martin van Etten;
see also point 5: all the projections rely on climate models to some extent. As emphasised in the Introduction to 11.3.6 there maybe processes operating in the real world that are missing from, or inadequately represented in the models.”
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

Yes Martin, I wrote an entire article on the manner in which every single statement in AR5 Ch11 is surrounded by caveats. There’s a quote to the effect that reality may be above, below, or within model estimates. Through the whole document, each estimate, prediction, projection and statement is attached to a caution that reality could be more, less, or the same. So you are pointing to the precise same mealy mouthed weasel words that I already have. No matter what happens in the real world, the IPCC can say they weren’t wrong.

But around the circle we go. They admit the models have problems. They admit that observational results are below model projections. They admit all of these things, but contrive to present the information in such a fashion that it seems the models are credible. They are not, and there isn’t a shred of evidence presented in AR5 Ch11 to suggest they are. Then you present their own quotes suggesting the models could well be wrong as evidence that they didn’t claim that they were right!

I’ve visited your web site. It is a collection of alarmist clap trap including several articles on the right hand bar about severe weather and tropical storm Sandy that have not only been debunked as having anything to do with global warming, but they’ve been debunked by the IPCC’s own recent report on severe weather. You seem to be one of those people deeply committed to an existing narrative to the point that the evidence you yourself present which debunks that narrative isn’t apparent to you as a contradiction of your belief system.

“there is no hope you get rid of me as long as you keep your untenable position ”

>>>>>>>>>>>>>> We don’t want t get rid of you. You are polite, a welcome change from the usual global warmer who “pelts and runs”. Your comments are welcome.

Concerning the expression “Hide the decline”. This is a quote from the Climategate emails that refers to the disreputable methods of data presentation by certain climate scientists (Michael Mann, etc.) The expression has become a byword for skeptics in describing some of the more dubious techniques of data presentation employed by climate scientists. David Hoffer has clearly identified such dubious presentation techniques in the AR5, and he has given cogent reasons why the presentation is objectionable.

You quote from AR5 SOD: “Over the last to [two?] decades the rate of global warming that has been observed is at the lower end of rates simulated by CMIP 5 models” This statement pretends that the warming trend did not end in 1997, sixteen years ago. The AR5 is due in late 2014, at which time the present trend will have reached eighteen years duration (indeed, with a definite cooling of twelve years duration). It is clear that the language of the final report will obscure this pertinent fact, and pretend that the historic warming trend of 1977-1997 continues to 2014.

“so in my opinion you cannot maintain the position that ‘they’ “are hiding the decline”

It’s even worse than that. To maintain that the latest trend of the temperature record reflects warming and that such falls within the scope of GCM warming projections is incorrect, and to support this error with dubious statistical and presentation methods which are designed to hide the actual temperature trend is tantamount to fabrication.

The final AR5 will be issued in late 2014. That will make it eighteen years without warming. The implication is that the final report will contain such language as above, and the pretense of a continuing warming trend within the scope of GCM warming projections will be maintained in the final report. This is what you defend here.

Thanks for your comments,and the pleasure was mine. A fine year for skating!

The hockey team should do the same thing they do with tree-rings: Calibrate with the temperature record and throw out computer-model-runs that don’t fit. Of course that would substantially lower the expected temperature rise…

Yes Martin, I wrote an entire article on the manner in which every single statement in AR5 Ch11 is surrounded by caveats.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
David, I did read all your articles here allready before we went into this discussion;
allthough I did’nt agree to (parts) of your reasoning, there was no need for me to formulate objections or whatever;

this specific article of yours however is misinterpreting some scientific research tens of thousands of people participated in including myself, people that wanted to be in the first row to see what is happening in climate science and what questions we have to engage in;

here is the difference between us, I am not so much into the IPCC, for me these reports are too much downsized because of all kind of political reasons;
in fact you are right! caveats! only caveats! what I have seen from the AR5 is not making me happy; you saw my website, alarmist “clap trap”, so you know that I think it is worse than the IPCC says!

thats why I read the scientific articles, that is why I prefer to speak with scientists, indeed I meet alarmists like Jim Hansen but I also go to listen to sceptics, I even went to Fred Singer when he was in Holland (but he was too much for much;

so my critics were directed at the wording of your article; if you don’t see the problem here, ok for me, but you loose me as a reader, before you make your point I think here they go again these sceptics..;

if you insult me – “Is the first graph serious? 154 data plots all scrambled together are supposed to have some meaning?” – you get me angry, indeed mpainter, we prefer to stay polite;

in a way it was also nice to discuss here because I never went that far in all those statistical discussions; but David, please, the “Ha nailed!” figure, thats not something that you are proud if I hope;

well, I have made my point and said my things; I am a retired biology teacher, and I am very much worried about the future of nature, the loss and change of habitats, the loss of species of plants and animals, including complete ecosystems as tropical forests, icy worlds and sealife – coral – systems by the changes caused by ignorant people polluting the world with their unsensitive way of living;

in fact I have only one question: what will happen with the climate when the carbondioxide concentration is rising so far beyond the Pleistocene boundaries;
and there is not yet the final model for, and they dont make a caveat for that!;

I can recommend to you the article I am going to read now: Infrared radiation and planetary temperature by Raymond T. Pierrehumbert in Physics today from January 2011;
it explains how so less CO2 can have so strong warming effect as people tell me it has, we keep learning;

Martin van Etten;
but David, please, the “Ha nailed!” figure, thats not something that you are proud if I hope;
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

No Martin, the comment was meant to be humorous. The math in this case was trivial, though having that bar on the graph was a quick and easy way to confirm that my math was correct, the IPCC is predicting +1.6 degrees by 2035 versus their reference period. Having demonstrated that observational evidence lies below the lower bounds of the model projections, your conclusion from the evidence you’ve studied is that sensitivity is even higher than both the models and observational evidence suggests? Is that how you taught biology? Ignore the evidence if it conflicts with the theory because the theory has to be right?

Your angst is clearly sincere. You see doom and gloom and dark storms behind ever silver lining. Do you know what I see? I see the cleanest major cities that we’ve had in decades. I see the biggest crop yields in history, the largest human population in history, and starvation that plagued the planet in one place or another for centuries nearly eradicated. I see the lowest infant mortality rate ever, the healthiest, longest lived, and best educated human population ever. I see habitats being protected and recovering even as the human population continues to grow. I see our birth rate falling, perhaps making us the first species in the history of the planet to control our own population growth ensuring that, unlike our less intelligent animal cousins, we will not over run our environment.

Could we do more? We most certainly could. The crops we grow for bio-fuel that results in a net increase in CO2 in stead of a decrease could be used for food instead of burning them. The billions that we’ve pumped into wind mills and solar panels that raise costs as well as pollution while burdening the conventional power sources to the point where they too are inefficient could do so much good if they were instead spent on irrigation, education, and so many other worthwhile projects.

We might even improve our education system to the point where the average student understands that w/m2 varies with T raised to the power of FOUR, which means that the warmest places on earth will warm little while the coldest, in winter, at night, will warm the most and hence do the least possible damage. We might produce students who understand that CO2 is logarithmic, so amounts over 400 ppm are increasingly irrelevant as the law of diminishing returns takes hold. We might even get students who say “hey! if sensitivity was high, the effects would be incredibly obvious by now, and since they aren’t, it makes sense to conclude that sensitivity is probably low”

We could probably improve our students’ understanding of biology as well. For example, they ought to know what happens to the biosphere when CO2 levels fall below 200 ppm. They ought to know enough about evolution that they see the fact that most plants maximize their growth at rates of CO2 in the thousands of ppm as an indication that either the theory of evolution is wrong, or that high levels of CO2 are the natural environment that they evolved in. As you are a biologist teacher, I would encourage you to think about these things.

the IPCC is predicting +1.6 degrees by 2035 versus their reference period. Having demonstrated that observational evidence lies below the lower bounds of the model projections, your conclusion from the evidence you’ve studied is that sensitivity is even higher than both the models and observational evidence suggests?
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
no, no, no, I would calculate in 2012 a new error bar and a new likely range before taking ruler and pencil;
I would study the reasons that temperature is lagging behind: is it the coming iceage? are the thermometers flawed? is it lower irradiance? or is there still a strong negative aerosolforcing?
for sure you know the usual suspects, strange that you mentioned any..? (Its also not the IPCC that predicts but in this case Rowlands cs)

anyway: a beutifull credo you wrote in the next paragraphs; you understand that I am from a different church (metaphorical spoken);

Mario Lento / January 2, 2013 at 8:09 pm
If we focus on the science, instead of the politics, we could have credible policy in place to limit pollution to acceptable levels without demonizing CO2.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
I cannot agree more, but I think we think in a different direction;

Martin van Etten says: January 3, 2013 at 4:32 am
=================================
Such panic over a warmer world. You are a biologist and you should know that life flourishes in a warmer world and that cooling episodes bring a shrinking biota. If you do not, then it is a wonder.
And so I lament the present cooling trend. Do you? or do you welcome it?

Atmospheric CO2 is harmless. If I were Satan, with a satanic desire to confound the environmentalists, I would foster the panic and concern over CO2. See what has happened. All environmental concerns have been pushed aside by a manufactured panic over a harmless gas.

And in fact, the last warming episode was not due to CO2, but to increased insolation because of reduced cloud albedo. This boost is now past. But I do not expect people who are anguished over the future to consider such a possibility. They seem to prefer their anguish.

A happy thought for you: the role of CO2 in determining climate, as put in AGW theory, is pure invention. I promise.

Martin van Etten;
David, what would I do with you if I had you in my “eco”class? I probably I would let you count stomata…
>>>>>>>>>>>>

I notice that you evaded the issue.

And that study you just quoted? Did you READ it? Because it says that between 400 and 650 ppm of CO2 there is almost NO change to sea level. Not that I am endorsing their science, it is shoddy as could be, but it demonstrates what I said earlier about you looking for a storm behind every silver lining. The study yaps on about the IPCC’s supposed safe limit of 450, but the study itself says there is no significant difference to sea level between 400 and 650. But you didn’t notice that part.

reading? not yet; they will send it to me one of these days, first I wait for the PNAS;

before 450 – 600 there is a difference between 280 380 and 400;
temperature is lagging behind, sea level is also;
2 degrees is 20 meters, there is plenty of evidence ‘even’ from the US; but not tomorrow of course; you can sleep without fear; but keep on watching greenland ice losses;

there is a movie with a song “always see the bright side of life”; must be your favorite song!

The excellent article by David M Hoffer can – and does – stand on its merit, but there may be uninformed observers who lack background knowledge to assess that merit. Your posts clearly demonstrate the mindset of warmists, and they have given David M Hoffer the opportunity to rebut your assertions (n.b. you have made many assertions but no arguments). This has ensured that all can see the truths presented in his article.

Your departure would end the opportunities you have provided for David M Hoffer to expose the illogical nonsense of warmist assertions. Please stay.

@Martin Van Etten:
You wrote:
I cannot agree more, but I think we think in a different direction;
+++
Martin it is healthy to want to learn from others’ view points. I’m trying here not to sound arrogant… that is not my intention –so stay with me.

“Thinking” involves reasoning… and reasoning leads to learning. The problem is that many people substitute the meaning of “believing” for thinking. I am not sure what you “think” because you have positions instilled in your comments which as richardscourtney says, you do not support [with reason].

You’re kind enough that you will not be too much abused here. If you can not come up with arguments that past muster, then perhaps your views could change. I often say that when I am proven wrong, I learn more than believing I am right.

For example, you would learn something if you no longer consider CO2 as a bad/dangerous gas, even though you still want clean air. Wrapping your head around what CO2 is could set you free. Perhaps you are afraid of the climate and want there to be a way to control it. I believe that people who want you to be afraid have won to some extent… and can therefore they use nice people like you to march to their cause.

Enlightenment has shown me that most of the people who march to the cause really believe CO2 is bad –and they feel they can help save us from that bad by doing (or not doing) something. The political scientists mostly know (or should know) that they are part of a staged witch hunt. Science is based on using what we know about physics, chemistry and math to figure things out. (This is my off the cuff definition). You could certainly learn something here… and I ask those of us who are smarter than me to help you along. Are you open to that? Please ask some hard questions… the hardest ones you can… and then be open to exploration of truth – rather than holding on to beliefs.

You complain of personal insults contained in an article that has some sarcastic remarks in it, but hardly insults. Then you complain that these insults you imagine are directed at your personally. Wow, that’s some assumption on your part…. and you want an apology. You complain that your questions haven’t been answered, which is true, since you didn’t ask any. You made any number of assertions that were replied to, you responded by evading the issue or posting links to articles that were not directly relevant to the topic at hand. In one of your attempts, you actually linked to an article that you seemed to think is forecasting doom and gloom when in fact it says that from 400 ppm (which is almost exactly where we are now) to 650, nothing much is going to happen. Now you are quoting still another article which is contradicted by the evidence that I’ve already presented directly from AR5 itself. Ah, but you already said you think AR5 is wrong, it is worse than they think.

And you think richardscourtney might be drunk?

Well, I cannot rule the possibility out… but LOL. The evidence suggests someone is inebriated all right…

richardscourtney: “Your departure would end the opportunities you have provided for David M Hoffer to expose the illogical nonsense of warmist assertions. Please stay”
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
My question: are you drunk? or what?
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

You must be a noodle in psychology if you don’t see the hostility in the remarks of richardscourtney;
Since some people here pretend (mpainter) that that we are nicely communicating with each other, what can be the reason for such a remark?
I do not see the LOL of this: inebriety was the friendliest expression I could find for richardscourtney’s, in my opinion sick remarks;
You expect people to behave nicely here, well, get rid of those that do not;

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
‘Then you complain that these insults you imagine are directed at your personally. Wow, that’s some assumption on your part…. and you want an apology.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

Why not apologize, if you actively insult me and thousands of others (my part is only 1/250.000, the apology is also to the rest)

Personally?: this is what I wrote: ”the ‘spaghetti’ you are laughing about is made of individual climate model runs that came out from the so called climateprediction.net project run by climate scientists from the UK in cooperation with the BBC and tens of thousands private persons how provided their local computers for the modeling”;
It really is difficult to argue, if apologizing for something you did wrong, even if it meant to be sarcastic, is a so-basic-human-affairs-matter…,

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
You complain that your questions haven’t been answered, which is true, since you didn’t ask any.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

You want me to summarize? Well just look through the thread above;
Regards;

1990 is a good starting year. This is when the IPCC got going, the ENSO and the AMO ocean cycles were very close to neutral in that year and the Pinatubo volcano did not go off until June 1991.

Since 1990, …

NCDC global temperatures are up about 0.18C or 0.08C / decade.
GISTemp is up about 0.17C or 0.075C / decade.
Hadcrut4 is up about 0.16C or 0.07C / decade.
RSS is up about 0.13C or 0.06C / decade.
UAH is up about 0.18C or 0.08C / decade.

By Contrast, …

Hansen’s Scenario B forecast is up 0.62C or 0.28C / decade.
IPCC FAR is up 0.66C or 0.3C / decade.
IPCC TAR is up 0.43C or 0.19C / decade
IPCC AR4 is up 0.44C or 0.19C / decade.

So actual temperatures are rising at about one-third of that projected by the climate models. This shows up in just about every category of projections.

@Martin van Etten: You essentially imply that you are insulted because you believe something different than some other people. How about the tangible insult that we tax payers have to fund the illegitamate works, which you endorse without understanding? These IPCC reports literally lead to summaries for policy makers that directly take away our freedom to thrive. Somehow you have convinced yourself that you are a victom because you have beliefs, which you obtain without understanding.

None of your comments are constructive… none at all.

“You must be a noodle in psychology if you don’t see the hostility in the remarks of
richardscourtney;”

Is this an explanation? Is this the limit of your ability to articulate your concerns?

The thoughts you write down have been implanted within you. You say things without understanding the fundamental aspects of your statements so it seems.

Martin van Etten;
Why not apologize, if you actively insult me and thousands of others (my part is only 1/250.000, the apology is also to the rest)

Personally?: this is what I wrote: ”the ‘spaghetti’ you are laughing about is made of individual climate model runs that came out from the so called climateprediction.net project run by climate scientists from the UK in cooperation with the BBC and tens of thousands private persons how provided their local computers for the modeling”;
It really is difficult to argue, if apologizing for something you did wrong, even if it meant to be sarcastic, is a so-basic-human-affairs-matter…,
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

Martin, I apologize. I’m very sorry that you and 250,000 other people worked so hard to produce a totally useless spaghetti graph.

Do you suppose that Martin van Etten really imagines that all of that spaghetti means something?
Is it possible that he puts any stock in that? If he does, if indeed he is serious, it goes a long way toward explaining why his feelings are hurt.

I ignored your reply to my request for you to stay to participate in this thread because your reply was too silly for words. But you have tried to justify the nonsense when you write at January 4, 2013 at 3:28 am

@ Davidmhoffer @ richardscourtney:
richardscourtney:

Your departure would end the opportunities you have provided for David M Hoffer to expose the illogical nonsense of warmist assertions. Please stay

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
My question: are you drunk? or what?
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
You must be a noodle in psychology if you don’t see the hostility in the remarks of richardscourtney;

My post was clear and reasoned. It was sincere for the reasons it stated.
I was not and I am not “drunk” (actually, Methodist Preachers have a prejudice which inhibits us getting drunk).

Clearly, I “must be a noodle in psychology” because I did not – and I do not – see any “hostility” in my request to you. It seems to me that you need to consider your own “psychology” if you think anybody who does not automatically accept your evidence-free assertions is “drunk” and/or exhibiting “hostility”.

I sincerely suggest that you would benefit from your making such a consideration of your own “psychology”. Your continued debate of your assertions and your reasons for them in this thread would be a good start in your making that consideration.

Also, as further advice, I inform you that you do not gain credibility by complaining that you have been insulted while you make false assertions of inebriation and hostility against those who do not provide unquestioning acceptance of your assertions.

Martin van Etten: I could not read the rest of your post… but your nonsense makes you a true waste of time in any sort of discussion. While you’re at it, why don’t you suggest that water is bad too… and show a video of another pig in a tank being filled with water until the pig is submerged.

No – forget I said that… people like you might actually think it’s a viable experiment.

Martin, the video of the pig is disgusting. That you think it says anything about the climate debate suggests you are as stupid as what was done to that pig is reprehensible. That you were allowed anywhere near children for teaching or any other purpose is disturbing.

As for your assertion that we are deliberately trying to misunderstand you, that is wrong. We really are trying to understand you. We want to understand how you can believe in your assertions despite being unable to back them up with evidence. We want to understand how you can be confronted with evidence that destroys your assertions, and you just ignore it and change the subject. We want to understand how someone who claims to be a biology teacher can be so hopelessly incompetent when it comes to matters of science.

And now, in addition to not understanding your inability to have a cogent discussion of the science, we want to understand how you can post a video so ugly, so ignorant, and so disgusting, that has nothing to do with the subject matter. Are you so stupid that you don’t understand that this has nothing to do with the climate debate, are you really that dumb? Or do you just get your jollies out of killing things in gas chambers?

@davidmhoffer: I actually got some joy reading your post at January 4, 2013 at 6:27 pm. I think you said what he needed to hear, but he won’t listen.

I no longer want to try to understand Marten. I’ve heard enough (of him). There is something deeply and disturbingly wrong with that person. And I submit here, that it makes no sense to waste any time trying to reason with the unreasonable. Fortunately, anyone with any sense on the CAGW side would distance themselves from him too.

when you bring the word disgusting to the table, the feeling is mutual;

for sure you did’nt understand the message; when the pig is inhaling carbondioxide the pig is being suffocated (and eventualy dies);

when people drown, they dont get air (oxygen), they are being suffocated;

when you (Mario Lento) insists that “you (I) would learn something if you (I) no longer consider CO2 as a bad/dangerous gas” you are just telling part of the story (and actively) hiding other important effects of the greenhousegas carbondioxide;

the difference between you and me is that I “think”, even “believe”, perhaps “know” – because I did read it in hundreds of studies – that CO2 is a greenhousegas, warming the atmosphere, melting glaciers and icecaps, causing sea level rise and finally cause poor people being drowned in storms and floods;

hiding that part of the story is very, very irresponsible, even disgusting;

Martin van Etten: Nothing you have said make any kind of sense. You are too absurd to have a discussion with. I can think of an unlimited number of experiments just as absurd as your killing of the pig. Yet you would fail to have the ability to comprehend.